Untitled, 2015
Loop video
Loop video
ELLE, 2012
“A makeover” is a book-concept I started in 2010. It is a collection of 30 images found on Internet and altered through a Makeover tool of the ELLE magazine online.
I downloaded the resulting ELLE Makeover templates on my laptop. The templates feature “before” and “after” images, commenting: “The new me!”
Excerpt:
(...)
As far as I remember, I always had a fascination for hair.
I easily recall one of my very first sculptures, coconuts covered with long fringes of
synthetic hair. The results were disturbing. The unanimated coiffures had a strange
presence and after a few weeks, coconut oil started to sweat through, exhaling a
strong smell reminiscent of human secretions with a tinge of rotten fruit.
Being born and raised in France, the English language frustrates me with its
inability to express the profuse heterogeneity of hair matter. In my mother tongue,
“Chevelure” means the mass of head hair. “Cheveu” describes a single hair fiber.
When multiplied it forms “une Chevelure”. It is countable: 1 cheveu, 2 cheveux,
and 3 cheveux… On the other hand, there is body hair, which is a totally different
business. It is called “poil”. The divergence between “cheveu” and “poil” is similar
to the difference between the beauty and the beast, the feminine and the masculine,
the high and the low. One arouses what the other turns off.
(...)
I downloaded the resulting ELLE Makeover templates on my laptop. The templates feature “before” and “after” images, commenting: “The new me!”
Excerpt:
(...)
As far as I remember, I always had a fascination for hair.
I easily recall one of my very first sculptures, coconuts covered with long fringes of
synthetic hair. The results were disturbing. The unanimated coiffures had a strange
presence and after a few weeks, coconut oil started to sweat through, exhaling a
strong smell reminiscent of human secretions with a tinge of rotten fruit.
Being born and raised in France, the English language frustrates me with its
inability to express the profuse heterogeneity of hair matter. In my mother tongue,
“Chevelure” means the mass of head hair. “Cheveu” describes a single hair fiber.
When multiplied it forms “une Chevelure”. It is countable: 1 cheveu, 2 cheveux,
and 3 cheveux… On the other hand, there is body hair, which is a totally different
business. It is called “poil”. The divergence between “cheveu” and “poil” is similar
to the difference between the beauty and the beast, the feminine and the masculine,
the high and the low. One arouses what the other turns off.
(...)
Copyright Julie Curtiss
Design by Dan Mac Mahon