orlan

ORLAN is an award-winning artist whose work incorporates medicine, science, technology, and often her own body. She was the first artist to use surgery as an artistic medium. Most of her work features her body as an empty canvas, thereby she becomes the piece of art or performance.

 

I found it quite hard to actually look at screen whilst watching the clips from her surgeries, although I thought it's interesting that someone would turn their own bodies into an art piece and document the way it happens, no matter how bloody the images turned out to be.

I suppose it's intriguing that our own bodies are anatomical maps, and that we have to explore ourselves first before we get to explore elsewhere.

ORLAN physically alters her body to question the idea of beauty and the real reason why we see certain things as beautiful. She aims to evoke her audience to question and challenge their knowledge of what is important in the world / the art, and attempts to break the barriers of gender, generations and general art practice.