A hairy process

Artists Payne, Roberge weave hair with architecture in Perloff exhibit

Jessica Warren
Published: Thursday, January 29, 2004

Modern architecture doesn’t have to resemble the minimalist décor of the W Hotel in Westwood, as Jason Payne and Heather Roberge well know. Instead of decorating a room with nothing but a coffee table, these two artists take an unconventional approach, mixing various shapes and colors straight out of Dr. Seuss’s world with the added dimension of hair.

Partners in architecture since 1998, Payne and Roberge are currently members within the Department of Architecture and Urban Design at UCLA. Their architectural exhibition “HairStyle,” which demonstrates their obsession with hair, will be on display in Perloff Gallery from Jan. 29 through Feb. 27.

“What (Roberge and I) noticed a couple of years back was that a lot of our work, for whatever reason, resembled hair,” said Payne. “Not in terms of hair growing off buildings, but they’re often incorporated in the way we draw and build models.”

The exhibit will feature four main projects, including “Man-o-war,” which also happens to be the only one designed specifically for the display. This toupee-like mat of hanging monofilament derives from its striking resemblance to the hanging tentacles of the Portuguese Man-o-war.

“We call it the ‘Man-o-war’ because by combining netting and hair-like threads, it’s going to be a swollen belly with a lot of strings hanging from it,” said Payne. “It will create a kind of atmospheric effect almost like a greenish yellow cloud in the room.”

Added Roberge, “It’s like a tapestry or a carpet where all of the yarn elongated on it will look like carpet on the ceiling.”

Another project, “Urban Filament, Complex Blooms,” is a highly intricate, geometric maze grafted into the city of Berlin. The complex lines resemble strands of hair over the city. “Internal Expansion” and “Branching Urbanism” round out the exhibition.

“The purpose of the show is to help put together a continuous thread that has to do with the sensibility that we’ve been trying to develop, which is a hirsute sensibility,” said Payne.

Payne and Roberge are not only grateful for having the opportunity to showcase examples of their talent at the university, but very excited to hopefully expand the imagination of students in the department and give them as much access as possible to pursue their own ideas.

“Our initial goal (for the exhibit) was to have everything produced here at UCLA in our department, even the stuff that’s really high-tech,” said Payne. “(For the most part), we were able to do that, which we’re pretty happy about because it sends a message to the student body that if you like what you see, you can produce all of it here.”

In today’s digital age of computer graphics and fancy machinery, architects can now fashion ideas they would never have been able to produce before. But this duo deviates once again from the traditional creation of architecture in the method in which they mix techniques.

“We actually aren’t interested in confining ourselves to what the technology produces,” said Payne. “In other words, we’re totally committed to old-fashion, low-tech, hand-constructed stuff. The work is half high-end digital stuff and the half low-end, like fishing line wrapped around nails.”

Each aspect of the exhibition is also from Payne and Roberge’s architectural company GNUFORM (pronounced new-form). The name, however odd it may seem, fits in perfectly with their projects and philosophy.

“Most of our work is a bit strange ... so that’s why we got the name,” said Payne.

“HairStyle” is free to the public. For more information, please call (310) 267-4704.