Human Hair Prints and Shellacked Printing Plate

Hair is “perhaps the most arresting, dramatic and universal barrier of nonverbal messages” (Myerowitz Levine, 1995:80). Its ambiguity as a part of the body yet simultaneously separate is deeply interwoven into our identity. Using human hair from my head and my mother's, this work explores the ritual of creating shellacked hair plates through a tactile, textural process, combined with printmaking. Paired back and simple, these pieces retain a focus on the material, leaving an ambiguity of meaning. In addition to hair, the circle is a recurring motif in this work. Acting as a symbol of the menstrual cycle, the womb, and the mother, the circle’s combination with my mother's hair culminates in works that investigate lost threads and traces of women’s histories. Namely, my own matrilineal lineage, most of which consisted of travellers and unmarried women with no official record of their lives, save for the DNA I carry with me in my hair. 

Myerowitz Levine M. (1995) ‘The Gendered Grammar of Mediterranean Hair’ in Eilberg- Schwartz, H. and Doniger, W. (eds.) Off with Her Head: Denial of Women’s Identity in Myth, Religion and Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press