Lani Beloso

The Period Piece

Lani Beloso, The Period Piece Series 2, 2010. Menstrual blood on canvas.

About Lani Beloso:

Beloso is a Hawaiian native who suffered from menorrhagia, a condition that makes her periods heavier and more painful than average. This condition eventually led to her starting her series of period paintings. She currently still lives in Hawaii and has a license in nuclear medicine.

About the Piece:

After suffering from menorrhagia for so long, Beloso was curious as to how much she actually bled and decided to sit over a canvas. She then created 13 paintings, representing a year’s worth of cycles, and titled the series The Period Piece. For the process she said she would, “paint the canvas, let it dry, then paint the blood on, pour it, or whatever I was doing and then cover it in resin, so it's not a biohazard or anything.” After completing The Period Piece Series 2, Beloso started to think about a performance piece for her work stating, “Yeah, like pour it over myself and roll around on the canvas, and [incorporate] a [background] film that will go together.”

Not going to lie, I am not looking forward to this performance piece.