Oz artist 'sucks out own blood' to use as paint!

Melbourne, June 4 : Rebecca Cunningham, a well-known Aussie artist, is pushing the boundaries in a bid to "make people think" by sucking out her own blood and then painting with it.

Titled 1ltre of Blood, 1000kgs of Bullets, Cunningham's exhibit forms part of the Brisbane Festival's fringe theatre program.

The 26-year-old Queenslander will use 500ml of previously extracted blood and 500ml of fresh blood to write on four large canvases about war.

Before the provocative three-hour performance, she asks people to write their thoughts on the war and uses extracts of these for the piece.

Audience members can come and go at will. At the end of the performance, the canvases stand among a tonne of bullet shells that cover the floor.

"To me the medium of blood has those polarities of both life and death," The Daily Telegraph quoted Cunningham, as saying.

"It can be both a positive and negative thing, and as human beings we're capable of doing good and evil things. It's a gesture of solidarity. I have never been personally touched by war or seen the ravages of it.

"I will never experience what people who live with war ... experience every day. The point is to ask questions and ask people to pause for a second and ask why do we fight, why are we constantly at war?" she added.

ANI