It’s been used to mop up oil spills, to mourn the dead, to fertilize gardens, to ward off demons, and even to make soy sauce. Yes, human hair has had many uses throughout the ages, so it comes as no surprise that artists have used this natural fiber as a medium too.

Here I have curated a list of 6 artists who use hair as inspiration for their art, from Victorian human hair sculptures, to ‘hair hats’ in the shape of animals.

1. Jessica Wohl

One thing that makes human hair so interesting as an artist’s medium is its dual ability to attract and repel. A luscious swathe of voluminous, shiny hair can arouse attraction, but take that hair out of context, and apply it to say, a staircase, it becomes repulsive and unsettling.

In her work Mountainaire Hotel Tennessee-based artist Jessica Wohl covered the stairs of an abandoned Arkansas hotel in synthetic hair. ‘I liked thinking that the building had actually been alive the entire time it was abandoned as if it had been growing hair for the last 20 years. This device also creates a sense of mystery, fear and uncertainty, akin to what one might feel in a haunted house’.

Continuing to build on this idea, Wohl created a series of eerie domestic scenes where hair grows from furniture and collects in disembodied pools on the floor.

2. Yuni Kim Lang

Not all artists are using hair to provoke unease and fear in the viewer. In ‘Comfort Hair’, Yuni Kim Lang uses the medium to explore her Korean, Chinese and American identity. She manipulates textiles to create sculptures that refer to ‘gache’ – traditional Korean hairpieces worn by women of high status. It was believed that the bigger and heavier they were the more aesthetically pleasing. In 1788 Gache were banned due to their contradiction of Confucian values of modesty and restraint. The sculptures take the form of endlessly plaited and woven wigs made from synthetic fibers.

3. Victorian Hair Sculptures

The Victorians were known for their sentimentality. When Queen Victoria’s beloved husband Prince Consort Albert died in 1861, the Queen entered into a state of formal mourning that lasted the rest of her life. This spurred a fashion for mourning whereby the ‘cult of the dead’ became almost a mania in popular culture. The hair of the dead was often saved for future use in jewellery or other commemorative craft. tresses were braided into filagree-like patterns, looped to resemble flower petals, even ground up for use in pigments.

Hair craft wasn’t reserved only for the dead, it was often used as tokens of friendship or to frame family trees. There are also examples of ‘hair trees’, one, in particular, pictured below, was created with the hair donations of living members of a Methodist Church.

4. Simon Schubert

Schubert’s mixed-media sculptures, inspired by Surrealism and the writings of Samuel Beckett, play with the idea of disappearance. His hair works depict women in coffin-like bathtubs or on sterile plinths, completely engulfed by their own hair. ‘Hair is a fantastic material, which is revolting, erotic, beautiful and aesthetic at the same time.’

5. Alice Anderson

The idea behind Alice Anderson’s hair installations comes from a childhood ritual she used to calm her anxiety. As a child, Anderson’s mother was often out of the house, and Anderson, waiting for her to return, would pick loose threads from her clothes and wind them around parts of her body or furniture. As her anxiety grew, Anderson started to use her own long red hair in the same way.

As an artist, Anderson uses dolls hair as a semi-autobiographical material to create fantastical installations. She has draped buildings in these auburn tresses, sent cascading swathes of them tumbling out of windows and fireplaces, and suffocated galleries in their web-like mazes.

6. Nagi Noda

Nagi Noda (1973 – 2008) was a Japanese pop artist and director born in Tokyo. She created campaigns for Nike and Laforet and a short film for Panasonic and was also the creative mind behind Hair Hats, an amazing series of animal-shaped hair sculptures made of weaves, real hair and wire.

If you’re interested in other artists using natural fibers in their art practice, take a look at this article about an artist who creates sculptures from collected feathers.