Artwork made from collected human hair has gone on display at a Nottingham gallery.
Fine Art undergraduate at Nottingham Trent University, Jessica Lewis, collected hair from her friends and salons to create three installations of different tresses.
Ms Lewis, 21, had been living in a house with three other girls where she said hair was โeverywhereโ.
But she found beauty in it and made it the centre of her exhibition.
Ms Lewisโs art is on display for the universityโs 2024 Graduate Festival, which also includes pieces made from paper towels, egg shells, receipts, dog hair, dust and more.
She spent three months making her art pieces, working for up to six hours a day.
The hair Ms Lewis, from Bourton in Dorset, collected included all types โ some of which she washed and dried and some which she left unwashed and in clumps.
She said: โI was living in a house of four girls, and there was hair everywhere. I thought there was something so beautiful in it, but it was on the floor, discarded.
โOther people saw it as disgusting, clogging up their drains and hair brushes, but I saw a real beauty and wanted to use it to make art.โ
Despite some finding the idea โeerie and disturbingโ โ including some of Ms Lewisโs friends, who she said had not entered the display, she said others had been โtouchedโ by her work and were interested in peopleโs reactions to the hair.
She said: โThereโs a great sense of community because everyone feels like theyโre involved; itโs their hair. Thereโs a lot of feelings people have with their hair.
โIt creates identities; people see it as beautiful when itโs growing from their scalp, but when itโs cut on the floor, it can disgust them.โ
The display has been open to the public, at the universityโs Bonington Gallery in Nottingham, since 17 May, and will be until Friday.
