This portrait of an unborn baby has been made with the artist’s period blood. Cringe not

Before you leave the page out of disgust, do consider menstruation is just a biological process.

By: Priyal Ray |
January 11, 2017 6:55 pm

We’ve all heard of artists using charcoal, oil and several other things in replacement of paint on their canvas. Now sample this: a woman used her period blood of nine months to make a portrait of an unborn child. Subtle yet scandalous, right? That’s sure how she meant it to be.

The stigma and disgust associated with menstruation, the same one that made you cringe at the idea of having to look at such a portrait, is what Romanian artist Timi Pall is looking to get rid of. After all, it’s just another one of the biological processes, like digestion and respiration. None of which make us cringe, no reason why menstruation a.k.a a period should either.

Any questions that you might have as to why she wanted to make such a portrait and why she chose to make it a portrait of an unborn baby, are answered beautifully in her post. She writes:

One drop of experiment and I realize the beauty of the pain, the value of the period, fertilizing my whole being. The periodic elimination of my ovum with my menstrual flow inspired me to give birth to something which has a biological
The periodic elimination of my ovum with my menstrual flow inspired me to give birth to something which has a biological end, and to create the start of the end.
The focus is not on the blood, but the work has it’s message because of the menstrual flow. Each month a woman has the chance to became pregnant, but with the menstrual flow the ovum is eliminated, and the chance to have a baby in not relevant at all.My concept with this elimination of the ovum, through the menstrual blood I gave birth to an artwork during these nine month and actually I created a “start of the end…
I feel that this artwork has a mission, even if it’s not able to see, to talk, or to breathe but maybe the audience will see, talk and breath instead of this little creature, independently from any sexual orientation, any skin tone or religious views…
When an “ovum dies” an “artwork is born”.

She calls her series ‘Diary of my period’ and has used her period blood over a period of nine months to create this painting. Pall painted one canvas every month and at the end of nine months joined the nine canvases together, giving birth to the portrait of foetus. She explains life and birth beautifully when she says:

The focus is not on the blood, but the work has it’s message because of the menstrual flow. Each month a woman has the chance to became pregnant, but with the menstrual flow the ovum is eliminated, and the chance to have a baby in not relevant at all.My concept with this elimination of the ovum, through the menstrual blood I gave birth to an artwork during these nine month and actually I created a “start of the end…
I feel that this artwork has a mission, even if it’s not able to see, to talk, or to breathe but maybe the audience will see, talk and breath instead of this little creature.
When an “ovum dies” an “artwork is born”.

She poses with her work of art here and is evidently very proud of having challenged the disgust associated with menstruation.

Timi Pall/Facebook

She has also made a self-portrait out of her period blood which she aptly captions ‘feeling complete’.

Timi Pall/Facebook

The stigma attached with menstruation has been long standing. From not allowing women into temples to keeping them out of kitchens, every society around the world seems to come up with their unique ways to torment women on their periods. All of this simply because women go through the one biological process that keeps mankind going. Here’s hoping this series and other series like this will shake people around the world back to their senses and gradually eradicate the disgust most of us reacted to this portrait with.