Nail Art Becomes Performance Art

Inspired by the intimate (but often unusual) interaction a client has with their manicurist, Wassaic, New York-based artist Breanne Trammell went to school to become a certified nail technician and decided to travel across the United States, giving manicures to the public as an act of performance art. The project, Nails Across America, will make its home in a renovated 1968 Shasta "canned ham" travel trailer that functions as Trammell's roving nail salon. Aiming to turn the act of getting a manicure into a platform for interesting and diverse conversation, Nails Across America will ofter services to as many different kinds of people as possible, from mechanics to gallerists, doctors to farmers.

Clients can choose nail designs and colors like doughnut sprinkles, number two pencils, and Cheeto Orange, to name a few, which reflect many of the aesthetic themes such as junk food and pop culture found in Trammell's previous work. After each manicure the client receives a certificate of authenticity, signed and numbered by the artist herself, making your one of a kind manicure a certifiable work of art. Social media also plays a big part in the project, as Trammell has been documenting her work on Instagram, Twitter, and Vine accounts since she first began attending nail school.