Synopsis

A Blood Artist is a short documentary about Axel Stocks (1946-2016), who was born to a Jewish woman in a displaced persons camp immediately after the Second World War. Her husband, a Jew, and her whole family,had already been exterminated. In order to survive, she was forced to have sex with the Nazis. After the war, Axel and his mother moved to New Jersey, whereupon he took up making psychedelic jewelry of a Gothic sort. He was introduced to Salvador Dali, then living at the St. Regis Hotel in New York City, who asked Axel about his life. When Axel related his story, Dali pronounced that, from then on, Axel was to paint in his own blood. Axel did so until he died, though not from blood loss.