PRESS RELEASE:

For Sultana Summer Set, Goswell Road present a solo show by French artist Alison Flora. All the paintings in the show are made by Flora using her own blood, self-harvested through intravenous blood extraction, questioning the simulacrum of violence and resistance. With medieval representations, esoteric symbols, subcultural signifiers, and an individual view of "contemporary hell" (stress, social anxiety, personal trauma...) she constructs a universe where mysticism and madness merge.

"Blood is inherently ambivalent. It has played and continues to play a fundamental role in all civilisations. Blood defiles and purifies, it is masculine and feminine, beneficial or dangerous, and spreading it can be a crime or a sacred act." Alison Flora

Goswell Road is a non-profit artist-run space based in Paris, France, founded in November 2016 by artist duo Ruiz Stephinson. The name originates from the road the artists lived on in London, before relocating to Paris, and is said to derive from the phrase “God’s Well,” which references the pagan practice of well-worship. With each show a book is published and flowers are curated in parallel with the works shown.

Goswell Road previously showed several of Flora’s blood paintings in Haus, Vienna, in September 2020.