Lovingly, in a starch white nightgown, Ellen Carpenter tended to a wooden chair dressed with synthetic hair in her two-hour-long performance at John Street Gallery.
text and photos by Maisie McDermid
Minutes before Ellen Carpenter's performance of "Hair Care" began, Chair II sat at the end of a white hallway doubling as a staircase. The levels leading down to the curious furniture piece showcased twenty other art pieces contributing to John Street Gallery's latest collection, "Misery's Child–" a black rubber-coated rocking horse, an oil painting of two swans on a lake, and various stoneware pieces, to list a few. But Chair II, a result of forty hours of tedious sewing, stood proudly, awaiting Carpenter's adoring hands.
"I know the chairs very intimately," Brooklyn-based multimedia artist Carpenter mentioned, describing the many hours spent at the legs of these chairs, sewing. While joining individual wafts of synthetic hair onto polyester stretch fabric, she established a connection to the chair figures– a connection undeniable to the intimate group of viewers seated amongst the gallery steps on the show's February 6th public viewing. Dark skies outside contrasted sharply with the white, fluorescent lights illuminating Carpenter's acts of devotion: combing, shampooing, conditioning, blow drying, and, ultimately, braiding the hanging hair.
Carpenter's cleansing and styling of Chair II contributes to a two-part performance: "Hair Care" and "Ruining My Life In Public." Both explore emotional extremes that occur within Carpenter's body and domestic space. While one inhabits the emotions of devotion and tenderness, the other exposes the, oftentimes, simultaneous emotions of rage and violence. The idea for "Hair Care" came to Carpenter while untangling, brushing, and braiding the chairs' hair before routinely putting them into storage. "It's a laborious process that often feels simultaneously thankless and required of me. After a while, I felt like this labor was a piece in and of itself," she commented.
Carpenter had not performed "Hair Care" live before this evening (only once before, with Chair I, virtually), yet her motions appeared mastered and intentional. "I think I practice the performance every time I take a shower," she said, laughing. Carpenter, either kneeling or seated with her legs crossed, catered to individual sections of Chair II's hair at a time– not one strand going unnoticed. The chair took several different forms: straightened after brushing, droopy after sponging, fluffy after blow drying, and twisted after braiding. Carpenter's hands matched a rhythm, not of sound (the room soundless), but of obsession. Carpenter, at times, appeared under a spell, surprising even herself when the chair called for a new demand.
Carpenter fetched water from outside the tall, cloudy glass door beside her leading into a hidden portion of the gallery. The sounds from behind the door, amongst no other, provoked a confronting familiarity. The door's hinges sounded like ones from one's own home, and the dumping and refilling of water buckets reminded one of their own bathroom sink. "I loved the idea of ‘fetching water’ in service of the chair, especially since I could incorporate the use of opening and closing the gallery door as if it was my own apartment… Leaving the room also helped me incorporate short visual pauses into the piece without impeding my actual progress."
Her brief abandonments from the chair felt all but brief. As the chair began to assume characteristics of both power and powerlessness, the absence of Carpenter created a feeling of uneasiness. Viewers wondered what would happen if Carpenter left and never returned, therefore leaving Chair II in a permanent state of incompletion. Carpenter's dependence on Chair II (the need to care for another) and Chair II's dependence on Carpenter (inherently incapable itself) oscillated throughout the performance– their interdependence, the central theme.
Carpenter's work pecked and pulled at living contradictions. "In 'Hair Care,' I inhabit the role of a caretaker in service to something outside myself, but in 'Ruining My Life in Public,' I inhabit the role of antagonizer or perpetrator of violence—and both roles are equally possible, equally true, of I think almost anyone," she added. As much as Carpenter demonstrated enjoyment through her relaxed posture and slowed-down technique, she also exuded exhaustion and fatigue. When Carpenter stood to grab a hairbrush or rubber band, she stretched her back and wiped her bangs to the side of her face. Every now and then, a sigh slipped from her focused composure. Beyond devotion, this piece is about the heavy undertones of responsibility.
For Carpenter, this, too, is a piece about agency. "Something about enacting performance with my body, with my full agency, is really powerful to me." As a multimedia artist, performance art is only one of her several other forms of expression. Notably, it is one she exercises the least. Nonetheless, she owns it, literally. "I can't be separated from the piece; in fact, the piece doesn't exist if I'm not there to perform it. That lack of separation feels like shouting 'I claim this thing!!' to everyone watching."
“Hair Care” is part of a group show titled, “Misery’s Child.” Ellen Carpenter’s live performance took place on February 6th, 2025. Chair II and the twenty other contributions are on display at John Street Gallery through February 12th, 2025.