Blood is thicker than paint

Artists have been playing with blood for years, whether using graphic red paint to convey the horrors of war or working with it directly as an organic material. It is one of the rawest and most enduring signals of mortality, human and otherwise, and has induced disgust, desire and terror throughout the ages.

This month, the Getty Center in Los Angeles explores how artists have used blood from Medieval times to the present day, bringing centuries-old manuscripts together with commanding contemporary works rooted in the body, by artists including Nan Goldin, Ana Mendieta and Catherine Opie.

“One of the most surprising things to me when I was researching artworks for the exhibition is how flexible blood is, thematically speaking,” says Larisa Grollemond, the show’s curator. One particularly compelling exhibit is Lil Nas X’s Satan Shoes – a pair of Nike Air Max 97s reimagined by the musician and art collective MSCHF with an inverted cross symbol, bronze pentagram and a drop of real human blood held in the trainer’s air bubble. They were in keeping with Lil Nas X’s ongoing subversion of Christian imagery in response to America’s religiously excused homophobia. Nike quickly distanced themselves from the project and there was right-wing media outcry, but the shoes were a sell-out hit.

“The inclusion of real blood heightens an emotional response to the piece,” says Grollemond. “Viewers have such immediate and visceral reactions to the idea of blood being literally present.” She also highlights Jordan Eagles, whose Queer Blood America is included in the show. He started painting with animal blood in 1998, reimagining the clinical depictions of childbirth in medical manuals. “I don’t really like working with paint,” he tells me. “Blood feels alive. I believe it has an innate energy connected to a larger life force.”

Since those first pieces, Eagles has worked with animal blood and resin in visually stunning paintings which explore spiritual themes, using blood donated by LGBTQ+ people. The latter works respond to stigmatising American and UK laws which have blocked many queer people from donating blood since the HIV/AIDS crisis. While the law has changed in recent years (no longer blanket banning anyone from donating blood based on their sexuality) Eagles highlights how exclusionary the questions that potential donors have to fill out before they can give blood still are.

He often combines vials of blood with images and documents from pop culture and art history. The blood is usually labelled anonymously, referencing only the donator’s HIV status or inclusion within the LGBTQ+ community. “My technique is intentionally designed so it creates a sterile and approachable surface, so there is no point at which the viewer is thinking ‘Oh my god, that’s gore’,” he reflects. “It allows people to approach the material in a way that is not sensationalised. I’m trying to get people to think about their own connection to their body, or to discuss issues that are essential to health and equality for the LGBTQ+ community.”

The work shown within the exhibition features a vial of blood inserted within a vintage Captain America comic. On the cover, the villain Baron Blood lunges, vampire-like, at the hero Captain America. For Eagles, it was an effective analogy for the country’s stigmatising and fearmongering around the HIV epidemic, while also being intensely homoerotic. “There’s this villain vampire who is purple, his body is super tight,” he laughs. “It’s this very homoerotic image if you view it through the lens of a queer person. Captain America is this masculine hot guy being straddled by this vampire trying to bite him.”

Other contemporary artists work with menstrual blood to challenge stigmas around the female body. Alexandra Rubinstein was recently part of Karvets Wehby’s group exhibition ‘Nudity Is Not Radical!’, showing work created with her own menstrual blood. She uses it in her ongoing series Manses, in which she paints muscular nude men titled with puns that confront the emotional stereotypes of periods – “Manxiety” and “Manguish” are personal favourites. Another of Rubinstein’s series, Blood Thirst, contrasts the sociopolitical urge for violence with squeamishness around periods and childbirth, perpetuating shameful stereotypes about women’s bodies. Artist Sarah Levy also famously used menstrual blood to challenge Donald Trump’s comment that news anchor Megyn Kelly had “blood coming out of her whatever”. She painted a portrait of him using her menstrual blood and pledged profits from its sale to an immigrants’ rights organisation.

In all its uses, blood’s inherent connection with the body enables artists working with it to evoke a powerful response. While blood has a fairly standardised appearance across people and species, our reaction to it speaks volumes about our attitudes towards the particular body that it came from. “It relates to this whole larger issue about equality; about what determines if we are considered healthy, clean, dirty,”  Eagles concludes. “Blood is the essence of who we are.”