Me, Myself and My Hair

An Unexpected Creative Medium

Hair. It’s personal, it’s political, it’s endlessly mutable. It’s one of the simplest yet most powerful tools we have for crafting identity. For me, it’s become more than just an aesthetic choice or a personal obsession—it’s a recurring theme in my work, a symbol of transformation, nostalgia, and self-expression.

The Collecteur, Self Portrait 2024

I’ve always had a complex relationship with my own hair. For years, I leaned into the power of staying the same—of creating a signature look that became as much a part of me as my voice or my perspective. My hair was my constant, my anchor, my way of saying, “This is who I am.” But recently, I’ve made a change—a deliberate shift to mark a new chapter in my life. Changing my hair felt like reclaiming something, like stepping into a more refined version of myself. It’s fascinating how something so seemingly simple can carry so much emotional weight—how it can simultaneously hold who you were and who you’re becoming.

This personal relationship with hair is mirrored in my work. In The Old Me, I’m attempting to communicate how deeply tied hair is to themes of nostalgia and transformation. The cascading black strands in that piece aren’t just a nod to my past; they’re a veil, a shield, a portal to a different version of myself. Hair in that context is memory—both concealed and revealed, layered with the tension between who we were and who we’ve become.

The Old Me

The Furry Glock, takes the idea of hair to a different level altogether. In this piece, hair becomes something subversive, almost unsettling. By covering a violent object in something soft and organic, it challenges our perceptions of power and vulnerability. It’s a statement on how the seemingly delicate can camouflage or even overpower the threatening. Hair, in this sense, becomes a material that’s loaded with contradiction—both comforting and provocative.

Furry Glock

Hair isn’t just a recurring element in my art; it’s a metaphor for control and freedom. We manipulate it, but it also grows unpredictably. It’s deeply personal, yet it’s one of the first things people notice about us. It’s tied to our identities, but it’s also ephemeral—a reflection of the constant changes we go through. In my work, hair becomes a way of exploring these tensions, of asking questions about identity, power, and the way we choose to present ourselves.

In many ways, I think of hair as a canvas. It’s endlessly versatile, a medium that carries cultural, personal, and aesthetic significance. It’s why I keep coming back to it—both in my art and in how I shape my own image. Whether it’s through the stark simplicity of a long, dark wig or the tangled softness of synthetic fur in a sculpture, hair is becoming a thread that ties my work together, one strand at a time.

The beauty of hair is in its duality. It’s malleable but rooted. It’s deeply intimate, yet it carries universal resonance. For me, it’s not just about the way hair looks—it’s about what it represents and the power it has to transform.

What I Wore to Frieze Art Fair aka The Wig