“Skinhead”. Photography: Céline Bodin. Hairstyling: Kim Rance. From Céline Bodin: The Hunt (Radius Books, 2022). Available At Radiusbooks.Org.

Everyone knows a hair stylist is the best friend you can have. And we all know the significance of hairstyles. A hurried change to one’s look—colorations, drastic pivots, bangs etc—can signify a breakdown or a desperate need for change. But in other contexts—cutting it short, say, or radically redirecting one’s weave— reveals a fresh, new self to the world. And we’ve seen the films. A character gets a haircut and suddenly becomes attractive, desirable, or awe-provoking. The message? Self-worth rests atop our heads. We confide in our hairdressers to understand all of this, and more. The hairdresser’s anonymity is comforting—a person to confide in, far cheaper than a therapist, and one who might also massage out that nasty TMJ with an organic honey and rose water-based elixir.

In her new book, The Hunt, French artist Céline Bodin explores Western society’s relationship with hair through the years. Photos consistently feature the model’s back toward us, the photos digitally inverted a lucent negative, the subject’s hair glowing bright against their dark-blue bodies. A sparse, one word label accompanies each picture: ‘20s,’‘ Braids,’ ‘Skinhead,’ ‘Doll,’ ‘Free.’

The anonymity of the subjects within The Hunt is intentional, Bodin says, and compels us to “draw upon one’s personal fantasies and impressions of sensuality, innocence, order, freedom, frivolity, and social rank.” The negative inversions of the photos, too, create a distance between each woman and viewer. Wanting to portray the visuals as, “haunting apparitions,” Bodin shares that the results, “exceed the human traits to go beyond, becoming creature-like visions.”

“20s Bob Cut”. Photography: Céline Bodin. Hairstyling: Kim Rance. From Céline Bodin: The Hunt (Radius Books, 2022). Available At Radiusbooks.Org.

The ‘70s’ espouses a wavy, ABBA-esque California breeziness; or there’s ‘19th Century’, a gravity-defying cut, curled upward at the shoulders. ‘Lolita’ and ‘Ingénues’ are the only styles with accessories in the form of ribbons, offering a picture of innocence and youth. The gorgeous, manicured curls of ‘Marilyn’ exude an essence of homage. “Being a woman allowed me to draw upon my experience to reveal the archetypes that had paved my ideas of femininity, sometimes through confusing oppositions,” Bodin says. “I enjoy the varying degrees of care between them all—some are intricate and stifling, while some act as breathers across the pages.”

The book opens with a short story by the writer, Kathryn Scanlan, in the form of a quick, anxiety-driven tale about a girl needing the attention of her mother, but something is clearly wrong. A cold breeze blows through the room, and the girl, “had the sensation of being observed with keen vision by something sitting squatly there.” The girl keeps crying, “Mother!” to no avail. This quick scene-setter, mixed with the cold, off-color photographs (including hairstyles potentially envisioned on either the mother or the girl), evoke proximity and distance, like you’re choosing the characters in this story.

In the book’s conclusion, Bodin writes, “Echoing classical art, these images refer to a mystical icon rather than present a portrait of an individual.” Indeed, each of the time-related pieces feel like a coagulation of multiple people, spanning over a set length of time. They’re not one person, but an idea, a snapshot in time. And of course, they’re inspiration for your next visit to your hair stylist.

Written by Sam Franzini