It’s not about shock or some immature desire to create some theatrical identity or a living representation of the macabre. Not his intent. Not my intent. It’s about confronting mortality. I would find it hard to trust anyone who after a certain age wanted to escape into flowery landscapes. We will all fertilize that flowery landscape soon enough. Always too soon for some, and maybe that’s why we need things like blood painting.

I’m putting VINCENT CASTIGLIA up here to further show the sophistication of the medium. He’s one more with range of pigment than Alison Flora, for example, but it’s still unmistakably what it is. We know it without being told when we see it because it is us. Castiglia’s influences though aren’t really similar to Flora; he is more Hieronymous Bosch or even HR Giger whereas she seems to be drawing from older cultures, South Asian, East Asian etc, but the choice of medium ties them together inextricably.

My own fascination, well… if you haven’t figured that out by now then you aren’t paying attention or just don’t care. Both?