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- By Asha Patel & Jake Garner
- BBC News, Nottingham
Image source, ian_reynolds
Artwork made from collected human hair has gone on display at a Nottingham gallery.
Fine Art undergraduate at Nottingham Trent University, Jessica Lewis, collected hair from her friends and salons to create three installations of different tresses.
Ms Lewis, 21, had been living in a house with three other girls where she said hair was “everywhere”.
But she found beauty in it and made it the centre of her exhibition.
Image source, Ian_reynolds
Ms Lewis’s art is on display for the university’s 2024 Graduate Festival, which also includes pieces made from paper towels, egg shells, receipts, dog hair, dust and more.
She spent three months making her art pieces, working for up to six hours a day.
The hair Ms Lewis, from Bourton in Dorset, collected included all types – some of which she washed and dried and some which she left unwashed and in clumps.
She said: “I was living in a house of four girls, and there was hair everywhere. I thought there was something so beautiful in it, but it was on the floor, discarded.
“Other people saw it as disgusting, clogging up their drains and hair brushes, but I saw a real beauty and wanted to use it to make art.”
Image source, ian_reynolds
Despite some finding the idea “eerie and disturbing” – including some of Ms Lewis’s friends, who she said had not entered the display, she said others had been “touched” by her work and were interested in people’s reactions to the hair.
She said: “There’s a great sense of community because everyone feels like they’re involved; it’s their hair. There’s a lot of feelings people have with their hair.
“It creates identities; people see it as beautiful when it’s growing from their scalp, but when it’s cut on the floor, it can disgust them.”
The display has been open to the public, at the university’s Bonington Gallery in Nottingham, since 17 May, and will be until Friday.
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