New York - Many artists claim to
put their blood, sweat and tears into their work, but Vincent
Castiglia means it: he paints with his own blood.
The New York painter has a new
exhibit, "Resurrection," in Manhattan's Soho neighborhood that
opened on Thursday and is due to run through October. It features a
number of Castiglia's paintings from the last 10 years, all of
which were created with Castiglia's blood.
Castiglia, 30, said in an interview
this week that his first experiments with this medium were prompted
by a "need to connect with my work on the most intimate level."
Human blood contains iron oxide, he
explained, a pigment found in many traditional paints, and which
occurs naturally in iron ore and common rust.
The public's reaction in the past
has been overwhelmingly positive, he said, but he does not discount
that some people could find his choice of medium creepy or
gimmicky.
"My response would be to really
take a look at the content of the work, which overshadows what it's
made from, I think," he said. "In order for something to be a
gimmick, it really would have to lack substance."
His process includes making a
preliminary pen or graphite sketch and extracting just enough
"paint" in the privacy of his studio. He then pulls out his brushes
to paint surrealistic, red ochre-hued images typically featuring
human bodies in some stage of decay paired with abstract
backgrounds.
One of his larger, more detailed
paintings can take more than three months to complete. His
paintings range in price from US$950 to US$26,000 (S$1,200 to
S$32,000). Rock and blues musician Gregg Allman, who recently
acquired a 2006 painting by Castiglia called "Gravity."
His "Resurrection" exhibit is
themed around Castiglia's interest in life's transience and harmony
he sees between life and death.
As an example, he cited "Feeding,"
which depicts a mother with decaying legs in a wheelchair gazing at
an infant she is breastfeeding. Castiglia said he sees it as an
expression of the fragility of life and the hope and drive that can
still accompany it.
His work is shown primarily the
United States and Europe, but Castiglia's art may be familiar to
slasher film and heavy metal aficionados. In 2010, a piece by
Castiglia served as the poster for horror flick "Savage County,"
and other paintings were used as album art for Swiss heavy metal
band Triptykon's debut "Eparistera Daimones" the same year.
