This Man Paints With Severed Hands In The Name of "Art"

For some reason, Norwegian artist Morten Viskum got the idea to use severed hands to paint with. They are real cadaver hands. He uses a different hand for each piece of art and different mediums in order to tell the story. For “The Hand With the Golden Ring,” Viskum used paint, animal blood, and gold dust.

The Dead Hands is a series of paintings a dead hand as a paintbrush. The series consists of three pieces of art: The Hand that Never Stopped Painting (from 1998), The New Hand (from 2007), and The Black Hand (from 2009).

Although the series seems "abstract" it's not up for interpretation. He wanted people to think of death while viewing his art. He wanted his viewers to analyze their attitude, feelings, reflections, and ethics towards the paintings. Obviously, simply looking at the paintings doesn't do much for that. It's only when the viewer learns how the painting was created and with what medium.

The series spans over two decades. It's not clear whether or not he will continue it, but it also makes sense that it takes a bit longer to make due to the fact that getting a human cadaver hand might be tricky.

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Post originally appeared on Inside Mystery.