The jewellery and small scale sculpture of Polly van der Glas is concerned with the landscape of the body and its meanings. Since 2005 her work has centered on materials that were once attached to our bodies: human hair, teeth and fingernails.

She is particularly interested in examining the constructed nature of beauty, particularly the kind of beauty and bodies our culture values. When attached to the body, we praise hair and teeth that adhere to the rules. They are key sites where body beauty is defined. Yet when they are shed, their meaning and value undergoes a dramatic transformation. Van der Glas explores this transformation in meaning, and uses it to destabilise ideas about beauty.