New Body of Work (in progress): Portraits Made In Human Blood

[Fragomeni]

Hi all,

I just wanted to share this with the community. I've just made publicly viewable the website for my new body of work which supports HIV/AIDS advocacy. The work isn't exclusively/entirely large format but large format does play a role in the process (I'm making Platinum versions that I use my 11x14 to make) so I thought it would still be relevant here. I've been developing this work for the past two years and the time has come to share it with the public. This is still an ongoing project (only half complete) and a new Kickstarter campaign will be released in the coming couple of weeks to fund the completion of the work.

A bit about the project: The portraits are 22x30 inches and are printed in the blood of each respective subject. I don't want to go too deeply into process talk but I'll say that the technique is a combination of chemical and mechanical processes that prepare the blood and produce an archival print. When the body of work is complete, half of the portraits will be of HIV+ people living with the disease while the other half will be HIV- and the full group will be exhibited together. The work is intended to comment on the stigmatization of those who contract the virus and highlights the necessity for unity and judgement free support within all communities and cultures affected by the virus.

Enjoy and please share this work with anyone who you think might find it interesting. Below is the website as well as the Facebook page for those who'd like to follow the project's progress.

Website: www.BloodPortrait.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/BloodPortrait

[life_in_sepia]

Interesting. Good work!

[Fragomeni]

Thank you!

[JeRuFo]

Looks like a very well thought out project.
A novel and yet ancient idea to use blood as ink.

With projects like this people often focus too much on the novelty or the process and forget the artistic side. That doesn't seem to be the case with your project. The portraits have a certain stillness about them. The low contrast helps with that, I think.

[Fragomeni]

JeRuFo, thank you for the kind words. I appreciate it :)

[George E. Sheils]

Francesco,

Congratulations on what appears to be a very thought provoking piece of work.

I enjoyed looking through the images you have posted up so far and I appreciate your intent too.

Well done,
George.

[paulr]

Really interesting, thanks for sharing. I'm curious about the stability of blood as a pigment ... I assume it will change over time. If so, I can see this working quite naturally with the mortality implications.

[Jody_S]

I really hope to get the chance to see these in person some day. As for stability, the Shroud of Turin is centuries old. I expect your images will outlast what we're making with pigments and inks.