Gints Gabrāns - Artist 
"Bloodlight. Portraits" 2011.

Bloodlight

Bloodlight

Laser light dispersed through a drop of blood. Photography paper.

Bloodlight

Bloodlight

Bloodlight

Bloodlight

Bloodlight

Bloodlight

Bloodlight

Bloodlight

"Bloodlight" 2011. Alma Gallery. Riga

Bloodlight

"Bloodlight" 2011. 4 Moscow Biennale of contemporary art "Rewriting Worlds'', the ARTPLAY Design Center and the TsUM Art Foundation, Moscow

Pictures of: "Self-portrait 2", "Double Portrait: Mother expecting. Agnese 2", "Portrait of Gundega Tihi 1,2", "Portrait of Egils Mednis 1, 2, 3" (~300 x 183 cm)

Bloodlight

The portraits in the "Bloodlight" series of works are produced by directing a white laser beam through a drop of the subject's blood. The light projection from the small drop of blood disperses on a massive scale in the surrounding space. As in a prism, the white laser light is refracted by the drop of blood into all the colours of the spectrum producing unique interference and diffraction patterns of light (electromagnetic waves). The projection is directly captured on the light sensitive surface of photographic paper.

Using spectroscopic methods, we can obtain a wealth of information about the formation of a substance and its molecular structure. Different chemical elements and their combinations have different components of the spectrum of absorbed light. By measuring the spectrum of the light that passes through or is reflected by a substance, we can determine its chemical components and thus, what it is and what are its characteristics.

Similarly, this method is used to determine the composition of unreachably distant stars and galaxies.