The Book Of The Dead: Artist Paints Nightmares With His Own Blood

Maxime Taccardi is an artist who is most notable for his unusual method – creating his pieces using his own blood. He studied art in collage, his thesis focusing on the monstrosity and what is considered abnormal by society. Currently he is a middle school art teacher, but plans to continue furthering his creative career. His catalogue of work is varied, including painting, drawing, filmmaking and music.

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He describes his goal and ambition in his artistic career as to create ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’ – a total art with Synesthesia. He explains his methods as

“My visions come from my dreams for most of the time, I try to let an open wound between reality and dreams. My Blood paintings are symbolicly linked to that idea. I cut my wrists and use the brush directly on my wound.”

He explains that his work is not created for shock value – “It is not intended to shock people like some would think but is merely a process. The final result is as important as the way to do it, I see art as some sort of a ritual, a chat between spirits and my mortal flesh. I do recall on what philosopher Plato said about art which is the manifestation of spirits through artist bodies.”

His art and music are closely linked, he explains – “Music, as a translation of my paintings into sounds is as important as my other practices. My project is named K.F.R which stands for kāfir (disbeliever in arabic), it is written on Dajjâl’s forehead, the Antichrist in Islam. To me it is the absolute sound description of my paintings, it joins Kandinsky idea about his will to translate music into paint.”