Smells Like Blood is a portrait of the cosplayer identifying as Zio_cos dressed in the character of Rei Ayanami, pilot of Eva Unit 00 from the Japanese animated series Neon Genesis Evangelion.
This work is one of two similar portraits exploring notions of identity and agency. Here we see the subject about to complete their transformation into the character of Rei through the addition of the final red contact lens. Here we are privy to a moment of intimacy: the cosplayer between full immersion into their character, but quite clearly not the person wearing the mask of their street clothes persona. This is the moment of ultimate agency where they definitively choose the identity they wish to put forward. They have shed the expectations of the everyday, humdrum world and with the final delicate touch of a lens to an eyeball they embrace a world of colour, theatricality and freedom of expression.
Rendered with oil paints in his typical high fidelity technique Tom has presented this work on canvas that has been gessoed and sanded multiple times to give a smooth and uniform surface to take the paint. The work has been finished with a high quality natural oak timber frame chosen to suitably enhance the work.
