Pro, 2017

A banner work made to celebrate the hairdressing trade. The banner form also suggests a protest, in this case against dismissive views of hairdressing as an easy or lowly profession.

Pro features loaded motifs that seek to reflect the importance and potency of hairdressing. These include contemporary ‘handle with care’ hands, and a head with a single tuft of hair: a hairstyle originally worn during the Vedic period in the 15th century BC that is said to ‘allow God to pull you to Heaven’. There are also ‘all-seeing eyes’, the form of which is a development of a design used in her previous work Gotas (2016).

Eldret’s Pro is inspired by the hairdressers in her family: her mother, aunts and cousins.