Imprisoning objects is something I did during my sabbatical in India 4 years ago. I enjoy it and it speaks to me. Whilst away for a short break in Puebla, Mexico, I found a load of purple cosmetics and imprisoned them. Here they are. I started this project in February 2024. But then I found more purple adornments and things that could be associated with beautification in women. And men. I have added some more imprisoned cosmetics in September 2024 at the end.
And some excellent thoughts on this work from my dear friend YH.
I recently showed my work to Yasmeen. She has given me some very useful and exciting insights and I have added them in italics where appropriate. Thanks YH!
This one is a good representation of how I feel when I’m wearing makeup. Like I can’t move my face freely, can’t touch it, and I’m so concerned about it falling off or being in the right place, that I don’t feel comfortable to even enjoy the beauty it gives me. I’ll head home early, take it off and feel so relieved. Kind of like the feeling of removing a bra at the end of a tough day.
This one makes me think, what even is beauty? Society’s definition of beauty changes every few years. When I was younger, it was an ugly thing to be seen as “witch-like”. That included big noses, dark features, black clothes, potions, and… long spiky nails. Actually, many of these are stereotypes of Jewish women of course, or women who were too smart, or had been excluded from society after being raped or widowed and had learn their own ways to heal with herbal remedies. Men feared them. Long spiky nails is now a power statement. It means I am in control, I have intelligence that men fear, and don’t underestimate me or I might put a curse on you. Now times have changed significantly… we can vote, we have birth control, we can protect ourselves from an abusive husband… but we don’t have equality yet. We’re still in a world ran by men. They daren’t give us equal rights, because they are afraid of our power.
Nail varnish is seen as an unimportant topic. However, I find it empowering. When I have my nails painted I feel that my life is together and sorted. No matter what shit I am going through. I can look at my nails and think, everything will be ok. I have only been doing my nails for past few months, but it really gives me confidence that I’m put together. Nail varnish seems like such a shallow and trivial topic to discuss. Why is that? Who decided that to be the case? Is it men? Probably not, I think in fact many men compliment my nails more than women. Perhaps because they can see a pretty colour, think it looks nice and so they compliment it. What I think it comes down to is that women think they have to adapt and mould themselves into a “man’s world”, and therefore talking about shade of nails isn’t fitting to that image they want to paint of themselves. In actual fact, I think many men would like the opportunity to decorate their body with colours and be more creative and express their personality more, but that neither isn’t seen as the “done thing” in our society.
When moving around the eyeshadow cosmetic imprisonment was trashed! So I redid it. This is how I have prepared them for framing – sewing them using purple thread on my machine.
This one I have spoken about before, but I’d like to dive a bit deeper. Tying your hair back has so many symbols, from getting your hair out of your face so you can focus, to tying it back so it doesn’t look unruly, but also tying it back so that you don’t catch nits. As kids we were told that tying our hair back protects it from getting knotty, now as an adult I understand that tying my hair back damages it, breaks the hair, teaches it to grow in unhealthy directions, causing hair loss later on, especially if you tie it too tight. In extreme scenarios like ballet and the military, where a perfect appearance is required, you have a tight tight bun and smooth the edges with thick gel, also bad for your hair health. Why do we even want to contain our hair? Its something so beautiful. A way to express ourselves. A symbol of our femininity. Hair bands seems something so innocent, but they can be so harmful.
These one-time-use products are not just one-time because they are easy to throw away, but it actually cannot be used more than once. Their functionality is incredibly limited. You put the purple colour, and then you can’t put another colour, the colours would mix. Once you’ve cleaned your ear, you’re not going to use it again the next day, its dirty and that would be unhygienic. We blame these one-time products, but there’s no other way to use them. We can blame the manufacturers, but as long as people keep buying them, we’re voting to keep them going. We’re constrained by our own habits.
It also means that each ear cleaner only have has a single purpose. It makes their life very simple. They have 1 colour to paint. 1 ear to clean. No expectations of anything more. No depth or complexity. Or maybe the depths of our problems are so close that we can’t see the depth and complexity of seemingly trivial items. Maybe our brains couldn’t cope with that. Maybe we are tied down with the complexity of our lives, we can’t appreciate the trivial.
Every time a woman takes off her makeup, its a relief, it is wrapping up of another day. Whether she was laughing, crying, listening, shouting, singing… at the end of the day the makeup comes off and tomorrow a new day will begin. The used sponges are like a photo album that contains memories, but instead it holds the emotions and feelings the woman went through that day. It would be interested to test the sponges for pheromones, you’d get all the emotions of the rainbow, just like all the range of colours you see on the sponges.
I think this item triggers a lot of emotion for many women. We’re told that we must remove all our hair except on our head and eyebrows. Pain is beauty. But its not just pain. It’s time, effort, precision, practice. So many things go into being beautiful for a man. The man is always frustrated that we take so long to get ready. But they don’t realise their privilege that all they need to do is shower and put clothes on. Yet, they insist in reinforcing this tradition. If you ask them how they prefer a woman, natural or plucked and pruned, they are conditioned to prefer the later. So the cycle will continue.
I’d quite like to get botox. Why? Because I frown a lot, and then go in the sun, and then I get white lines in between my eyebrows and I don’t like it. So then when I’m in the sun I stress to make sure I’m not frowning instead of enjoying my day. However, I understand that botox can be a lifetime commitment. The more you do it, your muscles weaken and can’t hold themselves up, and then your “need” for it is even stronger. You’re tied down by the cycle.
I have really enjoyed doing this project. I am not sure cosmetics are the plight of women as many men wear makeup. Are they forced? I am not sure.
A total so far (13th September 2024) of 29. A good wholesome prime number and the door number of my penultimate address in London before moving to live in Israel.
