Beautiful or disgusting? Divisive human hair artwork by Nottingham Trent student goes on public display

A Nottingham Trent University (NTU) student has spent months creating artwork from human hair, which has now gone on public display. 

Fine Art undergraduate Jessica Lewis collected hair from 10 of her friends and several bags from salons in Nottingham to create three installations for the 2024 art and design Graduate Festival.

The 21-year-old washed the hair she had collected with shampoo and conditioner before transforming it into artwork which aims to draw extreme reactions from gallery visitors.

Jessica spent three months making the art, with up to six hours a day working on it.

Jessica, from Bourton in North Dorset, said: “People found it eerie and disturbing, and I thought ‘I’d really like to push this’. 

“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.”

The hair collected includes curly hair, pink hair, bleached hair, natural healthy hair, red, brown, blonde and black hair.

 After washing the hair she would comb it and let it dry on fabric, while other hair she would leave unwashed and in clumps.

Jessica’s art also includes paper which she made from used paper towels, egg containers, egg shells, receipts, dog hair, dried leaves, onion skins, dust, water, cardboard and glass.

“It’s more about the material and disgust,” Jessica adds. 

“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.

“There are people who have never met me but part of them is now in the exhibition.

“I personally never found any disgust with it. It didn’t bother me cleaning drains. When I saw how it bothered other people I found it interesting. 

“Their reactions and mine were such a counter-balance.”

Jessica’s art is currently on display for the 2024 Graduate Festival, located on the NTU campus. 

More details can be found here.