MORNING AFTER NUDE, Neon light vector inspired by a drawing of artist’s hair on the shower wall, 7 ft x 2.5 ft, 2023, Artist Proof from limited edition of 4, price available upon request
Hair Drawings and Intaglio Prints
ARTIST STATEMENT
Nude Seeing the Light, Artist's hair on ceramic tile, 2017
In 2005 I walked into a life drawing studio and asked if they were hiring models. I needed the pocket money to support my poetry writing. The studio told me that as a model I would get to draw for free, so I began my arts education on both sides of the easel. This experience led me to publish poems about life drawing and to develop an experimental drawing practice. When modeling I would pick a spot on the floor or the wall where I could fix my gaze and so steady my pose. Soon I was afflicted by pareidolia, the tendency to see patterns where there are none. I began seeing faces and body parts in wood grain and dimples in the plaster. One day, years later, I was taking a shower and fallen strands of hair came loose in my hand. I smeared them across the wall so they wouldn’t go down the drain. I looked and saw the clear image of a woman’s elongated back, a chignon at the nape of her neck. With a few strokes of my finger the rest of her body soon appeared. And so I began using the shower as my studio.
Like the manuscripts of a poet, drawings strike many people as the private, material trace of the artist’s mental and emotional state, as well as a record of their virtuoso hand movements. The shower drawings illuminate what has always been true about the cultural significance of figure drawing, from Pliny to the present: we are voyeurs not only of the depicted nude, but of the artist in the act of creating.
Eve, Artist's hair on paper with adhesive overlay, 11x14, 2017
First I took photographs of the drawings in situ. Eventually I found a way to capture and transfer them using adhesive film. I often say that in our world of reproductions, replicas, and NFTs, these drawings constitute the ultimate autograph since they contain my mitochondrial DNA.
A strand of freshly fallen hair reminds us of the line between life and death. Spun into the image of a sensual nude, it suggests that our sensuality comes from our mortality. We are most alive—most human—when we remember that our bodily forms are temporary.
In this, these drawings share profound overlaps with my olfactory artwork. Through public workshops in human body odor, multi-media installations, and an artisanal perfume line, I explore psychological reactions to the body’s aromatic signature. By framing and encouraging reflections on the body’s traces, my work seeks to interrupt the pathways of our most subconscious judgments and to foster more mindful encounters with others and the world around us.