ASHLIN McANDREW STUDIO
Menstrual Maps
(2020)
Menstrual Maps transforms menstrual blood into paint, creating spirals that chart the body's cyclical rhythms through direct mark-making. Each month, the body becomes both artist and medium in an ongoing performance of embodied time-keeping.
Each spiral is a cartography of cyclical experience, charting the body's rhythms in tones that shift from pale rose to deep crimson. The concentric forms move inward toward an invisible center, mapping duration, intensity, and the subtle variations that mark each month's passage. These are not representations of menstruation but direct indexes—the body inscribing its own archive.
The work transforms what is typically hidden or discarded into a visible record, asserting the menstrual cycle as both biological reality and creative force. In the repetition of this monthly practice, Menstrual Maps becomes a meditation on embodiment, duration, and the intimate knowledge carried in our bodies' recurring patterns.