February 23rd, 2008 
Spooky 
Ariana Page is a very…unique artist, due to the fact that she suffers from a condition known as dermatographia (the immune system exhibits hypersensitivity, via skin, that releases excessive amounts of histamine, causing capillaries to dilate and welts to appear (lasting about thirty minutes) when the skin’s surface is lightly scratched). She draws various patterns on her body and then takes pictures of herself, thus works of art are born.
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Eww..gross.
wow.. the poster child for “if god gives you lemons, make lemonade”
its cool that shes liking this, but what i see is yucky red marks on a neon white canvas! gross!
She’s absolutely beautiful…
like already stated,
When life gives you lemons….
Because you see the word “art” or “artist” does not give you the right to appraise her skin or form of coping as if she were putting herself up for sale as high art. Art is what it is….it is simply a form of expression. Art is the fish a kindergarten student draws with crayons and fingerpaint. Art is the still life that a college student spends three weeks on completing for their class. Art is the famous Van Gogh painting that hangs in a museum. There is no set definition for what is ‘good’ art or ‘bad’ art.
She chooses to show the creative patterns on her skin, and she is met with ugly, negative feedback from people who don’t understand. Those without the condition (myself included) could not ever understand what she goes through daily, and therefore have little room to judge her as anything but creative.
It may not be Monet’s Water Lily series, and you may not LIKE what you see….but if you don’t, simply browse onto some other page. Don’t take the time to call her gross or weird.
Nobody with any kind of condition, especially one who is brave enough to post the effects so openly, deserves ridicule or harsh criticism from ignorant oafs looking to show of false intelligence.
This is beautiful IN ITS OWN WAY. Learn to appreciate that. Not everything art has to be slathered paint on a canvas!
art is beauty, art is life, art is fleeting, art is eternal, art is whatever you want it to be. if she wants to make marks on her body, then she can! the only thing that would worry me would be if she started slashing her wrists or something like that. i agree with a lot of the opinions i am seeing about art. i think fireworks are art, and in a way, they are. i think a birds nest is art, and again,it kind of is. art is what you wish it to be, it doesn’t have a fixed set of rules. artists throughout history have used what they can to create something beautiful to themselves, and sometimes, people only discover it when the see it years later. most of the time an artist only gets famous after death.if she does this and thinks it is beauty, then it is a kind of art! art is what we wish it to be.
“if life gives you lemons, make grape juice and then sit back and let the world wonder how you did it”
she is making the best of her situation, why can’t all people appreciate that?
To Whom it May Concern: Thank you, that’s what I wanted to say.
I’m an artist, and not all artists sell their work or try to make copious mountains of cash. Most just want to express themselves. I think it rocks that she took something unfortunate and made it into something beautiful. I wish I could find a way to do that with my disability. Her condition may not be “unique” or “rare” but what she chose to do with it is.
Shopped
yea, me too
You mean this isn’t normal? That happens to me. It’s not quite as pronounced, but it’s still noticeable. Someone will ask me why my face has a pink splotch and then I remember that I had an itch there 15 minutes ago.
shopped or not……..wow
cool, i was one of the first to be diagnosed with this disorder back in the sixties. i would like to communicate with ariana if she can take time to talk .
It is unusual, but she turned around an embarrassing condition and did something positive with it.
ouch does it hurt?
I think this is really rather beautiful.
Soul posted:
“Art is one of those things that each person has to decide the worth of. There are famous artist out there that just don’t move me at all. This woman is expressing herself in a medium that is unique to her. She has taken a negative thing in her life and turned it into something beautiful to share with all of us. I never knew of this condition and now I feel I’ve been educated in a wonderful way.”
I felt this should be echo’ed. It’s all that really needs to be said.
I can’t believe no one’s said it yet. Photo shopped!!
I actually have pretty much te same thing. My skin is hyper-sensitive.
I don’t think it’s as extreme as this case, but my skin is still very reactive to being scratched even very lightly.
I call Bamboon Tampoon on that!
I have the same condition and yes it does itch!
That’s awesome what she’s done with that. They look like white-ink tattoos.
That is some of the best scarification I have ever seen.
I was actually hoping to see the face of the fair skinned lady – nice post!
I’m sorry but I think that is disgusting! I can’t imagine myself touching it! I am not close minded! but oh my god!! What is this? What was your purpose when doing this? What are you doing to your skin?
I seriously think I have that disease.
I agree with ya, man.
sexy!!! and on THAT body, even more so…
It’s nice to see all the websurfers out there becoming art critics. It’s especially refreshing to see so many people criticizing someone for doing something truly original with the cards they’ve been dealt.
Not that Ariana needs defending, but she is a real artist:
http://www.arianapagerussell.com/
my skin does this too…i never looked at it as art though. its hard especially when i scratch myself [ LIGHTLY] it looks as if i was attacked by a cat, what is this skin type reffered as or does it have a name??
wow she hot
This is an inkless tattoo system.
Just because she does unusual stuff ,it doesn’t mean she an artist…
This is such a beautiful form of expression.
I’ve actually read about this artist and the skin condition that she has. I can’t remember the name off the top of my head, but it is not really that rare. Even the slightest scratch or abraision will bring up welts like these above which go away in a few hours or so, leaving no lasting marks.
Being that it’s art of a form, I can understand that. Not really my cup of tea though. From reading the posts above I see that some people really do like it, while others find it gross and scary.
But it is definately not shopped, nor a tattoo, or anything… just scratches…