Monday, September 19, 2016

On using bodily fluids in art (warning kinda gross n shit)

When I was in high school, I remember a friend of mine showing me this girl's beautiful artwork, all painted in her own diluted blood. At first I was extremely thrown off by the concept, but soon found myself enamored with the seemingly insane idea. One REALLY FUCKIN COOL artist that works exclusively in this medium is Vincent Castiglia, who creates super detailed paintings in only human blood on paper just ugh hell fuCKIN YEAH. It's crazy to me how much control he has over this kind of medium.








Another super awesome/controversial/rad artist is Millie Brown, who uses her own vomit as a medium. What she does is she drinks dyed milk or various colorful liquids or sometimes even glitter, and vomits it up onto a canvas. The finished pieces end up being crazy bright jackson pollock-y splatter pieces.



Occasionally she'll even use herself as her canvas:





The process itself becomes a performance piece of it's own, I personally find it really interesting to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dZ5BtZkIR4

 She even collabed with lady gaga, once at SXSW, and another time for a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHrsxnb_oIw



Personally, I do find it rather gross at first, but after getting past that I also really really love it - especially considering it's performative nature, and the idea it's grounded on of the body itself as a medium. I've actually considered at several occasions getting blood drawn to use for a piece, though I'm probably gonna make sure it's for a piece I'm extremely passionate about more than others, whatever it may be.

ANYWAY YEAH BLOOD/VOMIT ART IS FUCKIN RAD (at least in my opinion)

2 comments:

  1. Oh wow, they're both so beautiful. I definitely think process adds to the finished piece in both cases.
    My brother and I used cat piss (ammonia) to create intaglio prints on copper for a bit. It was gross, fun and unpredictable.

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  2. This is crazy beautiful and twisted. It's one of those, you want to look away but it's too intriguing to look away, kind of situations. I give these artists mad props for being able to control bodily fluids to use as their medium.

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