黑料不打烊

Working in sculpture, murals, and immersive installations, Icelandic artist Hrafnhildur Arnard贸ttir, aka Shoplifter, transforms spaces with the unique medium of hair. Previously, the artist has used real human hair, but she has recently focused on synthetic hair for its range of intense chromatic values, which allows her to create fanciful environments that immerse viewers in plush neon.  

As a medium, hair represents both the viewer鈥檚 identity and what Shoplifter calls the 鈥渞emnant of the beast in us.鈥� In its primal function, hair is a fiber meant to insulate and cool the body. Culturally, it is an agent to express individuality and social values. Worldwide, and throughout the history of humanity, cultures have used hairstyle, hair color, or the removal of hair as a means to express social position, gender, age, and other signifiers of social standing. 

Shoplifter situates her work between primal and cultural signifiers: primal, in that viewers are bombarded with a mass of biological vestiges; cultural, in her choice of synthetic hair, which is tied specifically to market demand as Shoplifter uses only colors available for purchase rather than dyeing the hair herself. In this way, the work functions as found-object installation. In this solo presentation in the Andr茅 Leon Talley Gallery, Shoplifter presents a new site-specific installation that continues her investigation into the power of material to transform spaces. Creating an intimate, welcoming environment, Shoplifter invites visitors of all ages to experience joy, energy, optimism, and playfulness.