Step Inside a Drawn and Threaded Treehouse of Emotion

Three artists weave a hideaway made of human hair.

May 11, 2016, 7:35pm

Amy Cutler, Fossa (2015-16), Multimedia installation with Sound by Emily Wells and Hair by Adriana Papaleo, 12 x 10 x 10 feet approximately. All images © Amy Cutler, Courtesy Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects, New York

Amy Cutler’s unique, illustrated world comes to life in three dimensions. An open, wallpapered room is organized around a giant hive wrapped in 800' of braided hair, both human and synthetic. The strands stretch out above you, like a tented roof, and connect to two sets of headphones that emit a multi-layered sound piece, which combines musical tracks with recorded conversations on the theme at hand. "We all have something that weighs on us," says Cutler, zeroing in. Her current installation at Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects, FOSSA, explores the universal feelings of burden and unburdening.

Cutler worked with musician Emily Wells and hairstylist Adriana Papaleo to produce the installation, in a departure from the painter's otherwise "completely autonomous studio practice." The collaboration was "a very humbling and psychologically healthy experience," remarks Cutler. "It forced me to share my thoughts while they were still forming, which is a very vulnerable place to be."

Fossa, 2016 (detail view), Graphite on paper, 55-1/4 x 47 inches

The installation may as well have crawled out from its sister work on paper, a large pencil drawing that depicts Cutler's characteristic female characters in a braided forest. At top right, a small group is operating a switchboard—a scene Cutler says was inspired by a 19th century photograph, which also informed the concept for the installation. Inside FOSSA, viewers can manually control the sound compositions by turning small wooden sticks that jut out of the hive.

Staying in line with Cutler's vintage, timeless aesthetic, the technology inside the hive is concealed: "We wanted the experience to be tactile and analog," she explains. "Hair and long braids have been present in my work for a long time. Normally, for me, it represents the passage of time, heredity, and sexuality. In this instance, hair took on a new role as it became the conduit for sound, replacing what would have been telephone lines. They weave their way through the space, and finally through the walls."

Celeste, 2016, Gouache on Japan paper, 13 x 10-1/2 inches

Alongside the installation hang Cutler’s works on paper, in a signature style that plays with “metaphors, archetypal imagery, and cross-cultural references.” Her intricate and wonderfully weird narratives—catalyzed by “everyday occurrences and memories”—always feel authentic, never gimmicky. One gets the distinct sense of being invited into a private space, wherein full access can be earned by solving the artist’s riddles or coming up with interpretations of your own.

The sound piece housed inside the hive includes snippets of conversations between Wells and her father, and this might be the only male presence in a room filled with the artist’s illustrated universe of women and girls. With FOSSA, however, anyone can slip on braided headphones and be a girl in Cutler’s world, operating the switchboard of universal woes.