Francois Robert creates iconic shapes, using dozens of real
human bones. He spends entire days on his knees, but the results are truly exceptional.
Francois has always been fascinated by
skeletons, but it wasn’t until a day, in the mid 1990s, that he came face to face with one. He was at a yard sale, in Michigan, checking out some desks, for his office. He stumbled across three, two of which were empty,m and the third, with a complete
human skeleton, inside. He took them all to his studio.
In 2007, as the recession began to think its teeth into the economy, Mr. Robert had so much time on his hands that he decided to turn to the skeleton in his closet. Because its parts were wired together, for educational purposes, the artist decided he needed one that could be broken down into pieces. So he traded his skeleton, for a box filled with 206 real human bones.
Since then, Francois Robert has been spending most of his days, on his knees, arranging even the tiniest bones into the right position, for the perfect shot. His collection is called “Stop the Violence”, and it was inspired by the author’s fear of death. He says “”The bones are something left behind, a form of memory, I try to treat that person on my studio floor with respect.
The idea of creating jewelry from human hair was inspired by people’s aversion to cut hair. Hair is usually regarded as a very important part of the human body and is worn with pride, but once its connection to the body has been severed, it’s viewed as slightly disgusting. Through her art, the young middlesex student “hoped to create a delicate balance between the viewer/wearer’s feelings of aversion and attraction.” She wanted to see if she could make cut hair attractive again.
The main material for howley’s masterpieces was provided by one of her mother’s friends, a japanese woman with hair down to her waist. She only cuts it once every five years, and when she had 30 cm cut off the bottom, she gave it all to kerry. The 23-year-old art student used broken saw blades to cut and weave the strands of hair into abstract shapes inspired by wallpaper patterns, and spent over 60 hours working on each of the five hair necklaces she has created so far.
kerry howley’s collection of unique human hair necklaces has already won an award, and will on display at the business design center, in london, from june 29 until july 2nd.
