British Sri Lankan artist Emma Allen recreates the entire history of human evolution on her face 

Celebrated artist Emma Allen rose to fame by using her own face as a canvas on which to paint stop motion animation. Her film Ruby, which showed her age and die, before flowers sprouted from her decomposing skull was viewed hundreds of millions of times online and was reported around the world. 

Her new film charts the entire story of human evolution and explores a possible digital future. 

Emma Allen, of mixed Sri Lankan and British heritage is an artist from London. Her body of work covers face and body art, animation, sculpture and mixed media. Much of her work is an investigation into the human condition. She has exhibited in galleries from New York to Monte Carlo and received global media coverage for her work. 

During this latest production she took more than 1250 photographs over 12 days for the animation – painstakingly repainting her face each time. The incredible video shows the transformation of a single-celled organism to invertebrates, mammals and finally her human body today, before offering a glimpse of a possible future. 

In 2013, her film Ruby went viral, leading to it be exhibited in art galleries around the world and creating a global following for her unique self-portraits. She later transformed herself into the FIFA World Cup Trophy, and also painted chemotherapy patients in a project called Heads and Tales. 

Emma, who specialises in face and body art said she hopes the artwork called “Santiago” will pose a question: is our current generation of humans the bridge between the born and the made? Could the journey that started with a single-celled organism end with a single digital super-cell? 

Each of the 1250 stills for the 1 minute 26 second film required the artist to transform her face with body paint for up to an hour in front of a mirror before posing against a black backdrop. 

The film was inspired by, and is named after a Reddit user, real name Justin Santiago, who commented under Allen’s film Ruby. Ruby investigated what happens to our bodies when we die, looking at rebirth and energy transfer. Santiago, via his digital identity on Reddit, mentioned human evolution in response to Ruby, inspiring a film which takes a look at the same human journey from a very different standpoint. 

Emma said: “We’re at an amazing point in our evolutionary journey where we’re starting to create the next steps ourselves using technology we’ve created.” 

Santiago is now available online will have its exhibition debut at Blackpool Lightpool from the 28th October until 2nd November. Ruby will be showing there as well as a new sculptural installation commissioned by the festival. 

Check out her work on YouTube and Vimeo.