Vin Gogh? Artist creates portraits using red wine

A New York artist has come up with a novel way of making the most of her leftover Cabernet Franc – using it to make portrait paintings. As reported on db.com, using a wax resist, 29-year-old Amelia Fais Harnas pours six to seven layers of red wine on top of white cotton in order to achieve the light and shade effects. To ensure the wine dries quickly, Harnas, an avid wine lover, has to work at around 27°C, rotating between four to six portraits at a time.

She discovered how to make the portraits by melting dead candle remnants in a coffee can over a propane grill and painting the wax resist on cotton bed sheets with an old paintbrush. “The idea of painting with wine developed slowly over a couple of years. I wondered if wine could be used as a pigment for my portraits and started experimenting with Cahors,” she told Solent News. “I'd love to be able to say it happened by accident, where I spilled wine and saw Jesus's face in it, but it really resulted from a series of what-ifs.

“I enjoy the challenge of trying to control the unpredictable nature of wine bleeding through fabric in order to channel the equally imprecise nature of a person’s character,” she added. Her portraits, many of which incorporate religious iconography, have been exhibited in New York galleries and Finger Lakes producer Damiani Wine Cellars, whose Cabernet Franc-based Vino Rosso is almost exclusively used in the portraits due to its deep colour and low residual sugar content.

"I’m intrigued by what effect wine quality will have on the works, and plan on experimenting with all sorts of grape varieties and regions to see how the colour, residual sugar and tannin content affect stain penetration, she told The Huffington Post. As to how long the portraits will last, Harnas is unable to give an accurate answer, though believes their ephemeral nature adds to the intrigue.

"I’m doing everything in my power to ensure they last as long as possible, but part of the excitement is how fragile the works are,” she said. Her works sell for up to £650, depending on their size, with a 20" by 16" portrait requiring just one glass of wine. Harnas plans to move to Paris to work on miniature portraits using French wine.

World’s first wine dress

First there was Lady Gaga's meat dress, and now contemporary artist Donna Franklin has gone a step further and created the world’s first dress made from red wine. As reported on db.com, in a collaboration with Bioalloy, which carries out research for the University of Western Australia, Franklin developed the fibrous cellulose fabric by introducing acetobacter – the bacteria used in the fermentation process of turning wine into vinegar – into vats of wine. 

The bacteria produces cellulose, which is chemically similar to cotton, when grown in a solution containing glucose. Other alcohol, including beer, can be used in place of wine. Gary Cass, co-founder of Bioally, chanced upon the material while attempting to make a cyborg with self-developing skin. Cass went on to form fermented fashion label Micro’be’ with Franklin, which aims to “investigate the practical and cultural biosynthesis of clothing.” 

"The Micro'be' garments are made from microbial cotton which forms on the surface of the wine almost as if the bacteria are trying to form a raft to flow onto the wine," Cass told technology website Wired.co.uk. "We have perfected a technique that will allow the bacteria to form a three-dimensional seamless garment that can be formed to fit the wearer like a second skin,” Cass added.

When dry, the cellulose becomes inflexible and easily torn – a large stumbling block if Micro’be’ is to go mainstream. This is not Franklin's first foray into fermented fashion – in 2007 she created a living fungus dress while working at UWA, feeding the dress special nutrients to promote its colour-changing properties. Franklin said she developed the dress to "challenge people's perceptions of body-garment relationships and our relationship to the natural world.”

Cass meanwhile, is carrying out research into how the Micro’-be’ material can be used in tissue engineering where microbial cellulose would be applied on the lower half of a wound and then seeded with stem cells. "Fermented fashion doesn't need to stay within the fashion world. It can inspire new thoughts in many other disciplines, such as medicine, engineering, dentistry or architecture,” he said. The pair plan to release a new dress later this year.