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Melanie Bilenker's art is inspired by Victorian hair-work jewelry. The artist uses her own hair to illustrate moments in her everyday life. In Shaving the artist depicts shaving her legs in the bathtub, a depilatory act that produces the very raw material with which her work is made. To view this scene one must peek through a mother-of-pearl viewfinder that is designed to be worn as a pendant hung from a chain.
Over time, Bilenker’s materials have shifted, and she’s evolved from setting her own hair in plastic to setting it on paper. Her scenes are always made from quotidian details of her own life, and her own hair. The artist uses photographs of herself as source material. Throughout her career her work has celebrated the mundane, and memorialized the passing of time and the ritual acts of everyday life, including the work carried out in domestic spaces like folding laundry, making dinner, or taking a bath. In doing so, the artist makes the personal both political and poetic.
Thumbnail-size images of copyrighted artworks are displayed under fair use, in accordance with guidelines recommended by the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts, published by the College Art Association in February 2015.
Shaving (Viewfinder)
Melanie Bilenker (American, born in 1978)
American
2017
Medium/Technique
Hair on paper, mineral crystal, mother of pearl, gold (18k), silver with gold filled chain
Dimensions
Length x width: 6.4 × 3.5 × 3.5 cm (2 1/2 × 1 3/8 × 1 3/8 in.)
Credit Line
Museum purchase with funds donated by Carol Shasha Green
Accession Number2021.663
ClassificationsJewelry / Adornment
Melanie Bilenker's art is inspired by Victorian hair-work jewelry. The artist uses her own hair to illustrate moments in her everyday life. In Shaving the artist depicts shaving her legs in the bathtub, a depilatory act that produces the very raw material with which her work is made. To view this scene one must peek through a mother-of-pearl viewfinder that is designed to be worn as a pendant hung from a chain.
Over time, Bilenker’s materials have shifted, and she’s evolved from setting her own hair in plastic to setting it on paper. Her scenes are always made from quotidian details of her own life, and her own hair. The artist uses photographs of herself as source material. Throughout her career her work has celebrated the mundane, and memorialized the passing of time and the ritual acts of everyday life, including the work carried out in domestic spaces like folding laundry, making dinner, or taking a bath. In doing so, the artist makes the personal both political and poetic.
DescriptionSmall viewfinder pendnat with a scene of legs being shaved in a bathtub. The detailed illustration is created by the artist's own hair, which has been set on paper. The mother-of-pearl pendnat is suspended from a gold paperclip chain.
ProvenanceThe artist; Sienna Patti Gallery, Lennox, MA; 2021, sold by Sienna Patti Gallery to the MFA. (Accession date: September 30, 2021)