How did the idea for the project first come about? How did it develop? Merrick: We both love abstract art, and the idea of fluidity between artistic disciplines. We wanted to show hair in a different way, deliberately abstracting it.

What was the process for creating the hair for each look? Claire: I started with a lot of extensions and laid them out and treated the hair like a canvas, I used hair dye like paint and was really free with the application. I think because the hair wasn’t attached to a person I could be as creative as I wanted to be with colour choices and placement.

What was the idea behind the different types of hair featured? Claire: I wanted to use a whole spectrum of colours but I also wanted to make sure I used different hair textures, this is something that is really important to me in all my work, as much as we wanted the shoot to be abstract I also didn’t want to only represent one type of hair. I wanted to challenge the perception of wet hair as it’s usually represented on straight Caucasian hair. Wet hair is always referenced as straight and I wanted to also include curly hair.

How did you go about creating the images? Merrick: I had a glass tank made, placed it on a scaffold and filled it with water. Claire played with different hair wefts and hair dye, which I shot either beneath or above the tank. Every time we changed looks we had to pump all the water out and refill it, so the colours wouldn’t mix.

Did the colours represent anything? How did you want to use them in contrast to the different styles of hair? Merrick: The choice of colours was totally instinctive and collaborative – like a lot of abstract painting, it was subconscious, not deliberately symbolic. We wanted a range of colours, for each image to have a certain mood.

What do you hope people take away from the images? Merrick: I’m fascinated by how varied interpretation can be, and wouldn’t want to try to control what people take away from these images. Personally, when I look at them now, as a viewer, they seem to celebrate the beauty of different hair types and fluidity, in every sense.

Claire: I have so much interest in hair as a stand alone object and a lot of concepts I come up with are hair separate from a person. I think hair in water is such a beautiful thing and I would love for people to take away from this that hair is an art form and a tool for creativity just like paint is.