'Shroud', screenprint on linen made with the artist's blood, showing the artist's body covered with tattoos, by Lee Wagstaff, 2000

Screenprint on linen, resembling the Shroud of Turin, made with the artist's own blood showing a life-sized negative image of the artist's body and his tattoos

Given by the artist

Artist's statement:-

'Lee Wagstaff (printmaking)'

'For the last four years I have explored the relationship between printmaking and tattooing. I was raised as a Roman Catholic and had strong influences from Indian members of my family. The imagery for my tattoos draws strongly on my religious upbringing and consists of symbols and patterns that are found in almost every culture in the world (circles, squares, stars, swastikas, triangles, etc.) I am interested in the migration and spontaneous generation of geometric forms, how the same shapes and patterns can be found in diverse cultures over vast geographic areas.

For the tattoo to be permanent, ink must be placed beneath the skin. Blood is a by-product of tattooing and so it seemed natural to include this in my work. When the body is tattooed it is wounded, it is from these bleeding wounds that I began to make prints. This led me to the idea of screen printing with blood. The life-size 'Shroud' [E.1203-2000] was created by printing with a pint of my own blood.

Printmaking and tattooing share many technical and aesthetic similarities. Tattooing was perhaps the earliest form of permanent mark-making known to man; wood block printing was used on human skin as a guide for tattooing long before it was used on paper.

The design for my tattoos are firstly drawn onto very thin tissue paper which is then redrawn on top of carbon paper which is in turn transferred directly onto my skin using water with a little detergent; the design is then tattooed using the carbon as a guide.

Becoming tattooed has had an enormous effect on my life; apart from the obvious change in my physical appearance and the way I am perceived by others it has made me consider a number of issues including permanence, mortality and of course pain.'

Shroud is a life-size photographic negative image of the artist's body printed in his own blood. Wagstaff's inspiration came from seeing his tattooist using a tissue to soak up the blood produced by the tattooing procedure, leaving an impression of the design in blood on the tissue. After experimenting with small prints taken directly from his new tattoos, the artist embarked on a more ambitious project that involved creating a screen from a negative photograph of his whole body and drawing a pint of his own blood - enough to print two life-size 'shrouds'. The tattoos themselves, besides resembling wounds, illustrate the artist's fascination with religious symbolism.

E.1203-2000