The “Hair Pieces” photography series by Rebecca Drolen is a study of the objectification of a person’s body — in this case, the artist’s own. Drolen poses for a series of self-portraits, calmly composed in black and white, accessorized with hair in natural and unnatural places. In somewhat grotesque suggestions of vanity’s affectations, a woman (Drolen) curls eyelashes as long as her forearm, wears broom-like blond earrings or affixes a braid of freshly-cut hair to her collar. Many of the photos feature only part of the artist — the hair a stand-in for both the presence and absence of a person. The poses reference classic conflicts of body politics, playing with issues of femininity and sexuality, and the collection as a whole questions the nature of personhood: how we manage and relate to the detached parts of ourselves.
