Rachel Portesi: Hair Portraits
Online and on view through February 14, 2021
Brattleboro Museum & Art Center
Brattleboro, Vermont
Since the beginning of human history, hair has held cultural and symbolic meaning. It is a marker of ethnicity, social class, identity, gender, sexuality, age, sickness, and health. Women’s hair especially is woven into mythology, religion, politics, culture, and art.
Rachel Portesi makes hair portraits utilizing the early photographic method of tintype. She works collaboratively with her models to create intricate—one might say baroque—hair styles.
“I use hair both to honor and to say goodbye to past parts of myself. These images address fertility, sexuality, creativity, nurturing, harmony, and discord with nature. Above all, these images are a record of metamorphosis from a past fractured self to an integrated, self-confident woman.”
— Rachel Portesi
Take a virtual tour: https://eazel.net/exhibitions/758
Image:
Rachel Portesi, Goddess
