NOW & THEN
Antique meets Contemporary

'Saturday' brooch - gold, ebony, resin, pigment, hair

Melanie Bilenker

The Victorians kept lockets of hair and miniature portraits painted with ground hair and pigment to secure the memory of a lost love. In much the same way, I secure my memories through photographic images rendered in lines of my own hair, the physical remnants.

My life is defined by what I do every day. I want to contemplate the small events, to inspect without idealizing them.

As Henri Lefebvre once wrote –
“I am not interested in the high points of life. Only five minutes of every day are interesting. I want to show the rest, normal life.”

Biographical Details