By Paul Gallagher

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A Dutch artist has used a flap of her own skin to make a replica pistol to be shown at an Amsterdam art show next month, she said Friday.

"I made a pistol to express my concern about violence in society and to show the connection between what a pistol does and the human body," said Joanneke Meester said of the replica, which is about the size of a matchbox.

Meester said she made the tiny replica pistol with a piece of skin -- 20 centimeters (8 inches) long and four centimeters (1.6 inches) high -- surgically removed from her abdomen. The puckered skin was stretched and sewn over a plastic and fiber pistol mold.

Meester said she had the flap of skin removed under local anaesthetic to allow her to make the pistol. The surgery left her with 16 stitches. She froze the skin, then defrosted it to make a replica weapon preserved in formaldehyde.

Meester, whose piece will be on display in a glass case at Amsterdam's Kunstvlaai exhibition organized in a former gas works in the Dutch capital from May 8-16, has used skin as a theme in her other work too.

The 38-year-old artist has made "cuddly toys" with pig skins she obtained from a butchers and produced video installations in which actors are mummified by skin-tight costumes, rendering their faces anonymous.

But the pistol is the first time she has used human skin in her work. "It felt like something between chicken skin and pig skin," she said.

"It took me about an hour to make (the pistol) and at a certain point the edge started drying up and you could see a little blood on the skin, congealed," she said.

"If everyone made a pistol from their own skin, I think they would think twice about using a gun. I think there would be less violence in the world," she said. "But it's not that easy. Violence will always exist."

In the television age too many people were distanced from its stark reality, she said.

"It's actually not an unambiguous work of art," she said. "I can understand that it can come across as shocking."

The art world is no stranger to controversy. A transvestite potter beat the creators of a pair of bronze sex dolls to land Britain's Turner art prize in 2003. A pickled sheep and a Virgin Mary figure made of elephant dung have also won the prize.