Sophie Chao

Blood, Guns & an M4 Rifle considers the impersonality of modern warfare against the spectacular ways war is historicized. Female figures and references to historical East Asian uniforms replace the masculinized soldiers and technical dress of contemporary warfare, rendered in cadmium red that softens into fleshy pinks across the body while remaining blood-red in their details. Painted with matte, soft finishes, the figures contrast with the varnished, deep-black, abstracted M4 rifles, positioning the weapons as imposing and impersonal objects through which violence becomes distanced from the human body.