Leah Graup
Eyelash Lampshade, 2025
Fake eyelashes, human hair, lamp
8.5" (lampshade) x 15" (top of shade to bottom of hair)
Approx. 140" cord

Artist Statement

What are we still concerned about-use, reuse, found or bought? Don't we swipe credit cards at the thrift store? I didn't even have enough money to buy materials for art projects this year. We are all completely entangled in consumerism, but that's just a microscopic word in the grand scheme of what consumerism exists under. Maybe you pay for permanent eyelashes. Maybe you get them at the dollar store. Maybe you order expensive skincare off the internet. We are entangled-too entangled to see 2035. Hair will thin, skin will sag, no matter how many times you've run over it with a serum and a sculpting tool. We are malleable, fleshy beings, obsessed with altering our appearance for eternity. And why not? It's our right. Who's to say? Who's to comment on one's choices? A woman in Idaho was zip-tied and kidnapped out of a town hall meeting. How can we consciously make selfish decisions while humanity is abused, broken, destroyed every single day? Our brains are our armor, protecting us from only so much. And so, we return to ourselves. What can we do for ourselves to feel better? Because that is ground zero. Many of us only have ourselves. Where else is there to go but inward? My mother has been a nurse for 20 years, and she struggles to heat her house. She says to me, Where else is there to go but inward? Every day, our purchases will look back at us-wink, flirt, and beg: More, more, more, more. Personify what you must to get by. Adorn what you must to get by. Laugh as much as you can. Go inward as deep as you can. Find the humanity in yourself and let it spread-onto you, your thrifted clothing, your dyed hair, your pretty eyelashes, your caesar salad. Just be alive as best you can. How can material matter when our shared humankind is hurting?

Donated By The Artist

leahgraup.com