The Oak Park Art League is sponsoring an exhibition, "Behind the wall, a juried exhibition October 14, 2016. The announcement says, ART FOR SOCIAL CHANGE: Behind the Wall calls on artists from across Chicagoland to submit artwork for a juried exhibition that raises awareness to journeys of conflict, pain, empowerment and peace. The working title Behind the Wall, references the isolation and suffering that victims of domestic violence experience in their private lives, as well as the healing gained in the recovery process that brings the work to the walls of the Oak Park Art League’s historic Carriage House Gallery."
I am participating because I am victim of a homosexual sexual assault and childhood domestic violence. I am comfortable talking about my experiences after all theses years and I have enough artistic technique to create an allegorical depiction. I have never worked with allegory. My artistic explorations have been devoted to direct representation and the abstraction of representational work. I researched how to depict sexual assault and rape; I expanded into depiction of homosexual assault and rape.
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| Rape of the Sabine women, Poussin Rome, 1637 from Wikimedia. |
My Art school days, long ago, gave me images of Poussin's Rape of the Sabine women." and Ttitian's Rape of Europa.
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Titian Rape of Europa 1560 from Wikimedia
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A Google search using various search terms also provided Artemisia Gentileschi's work from the 1600's, Frieda Kahlo, A few small nips, 1935 numerous representations of Judith slaying Holofernes from 1614 to now. The most current Judith is Tina Blondell's, I'll make you shorter by a head, 1999. Unfortunately all of these do not depict rape or sexual assault, but are comments on Feminism. Gentileschi was raped and chose to confront the rapist in court. Her work, often misinterpreted as a rape is her version of Judith slaying Holofernes, represented below. It is notable for the realistic blood and the arc of blood spurting from the neck.
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| Gentileschi's Judith |
I want to be specific with my allegory and not confuse the issue with other thoughts. When I added the query terms for homosexual rape and sexual assault. This inquiry gave me the work of Paul Cadmus, the Burnster skirt by Alexander McQueen and rape viewed from the victim's perspective, Charlotte Farhan, Chained to the past, Lisa Perrett, the rape scene posted March 2011, Andrea Bowers, Courtroom drawings, Steubenville rape case, text messages entered as evidence in 2014. Of note, Apana Caur, a Sikh artist produced Nirbhaya, 2014 and Gracie Holtzman produced Rape culture, a self portrait with her as victim. Cadmus created many over endowed man figures, but no sexual assaults.
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Gracie Holtzclaw, Rape culture 2014
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Performance art by Marina Abramovic, Ana Mendieta, Salamishah & Scheherzade Tillet and the film of Sophia Henson, are you ok bob? (sic) round out and typify artists depiction of rape and sexual assault. In all of the cases rape is the central theme and rapist male with a female victim, note that the artist is female.
Images available for this allegorical topic are victim centered and are either crime scene photographs or artistic interpretations of alienation. It appears from my search that some galleries use this theme as a fund raiser for women's shelters and the resultant photographs are abused victim portraits like Holtzclaw above.
Initially, I explored these photographs thinking that a portrait post assault would convey the impact I hoped for.
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| A watercolor study 2 by 3 inches |
The child in the study above is a professional actor made up for this photograph and the images is available on-line for a fee. Even though the image is disturbing, it was not what I was looking for.
I chose my school photo from that time as a jumping off point. Showing the injuries as a black eye and split lip on this formal photo makes the piece work. The injuries are temporary, but their impact is permanent. I struggled with how to tell the rest of the story. The uncommon part is the exact date of the Chicago Tribune article on the assault. I automatically entered my elementary school’s name because that is part of the formal portrait. Also, 1959 was a time of Eisenhower peace. We, children, were seen and not heard. We thought that authority always protected the little guy and the good guy always wins in the end. Not so.
I always struggle with framing. I have renewed the idea of varnishing watercolor paintings for the dimensionality and protection. In this case it adds to the idea that it is a photograph. I hit on the idea of a shadowbox frame when I thought of incorporating the newspaper articles into the frame of the painting.
The painting is transparent watercolor on 300# Fabriano HP paper. The painting is 5 by 7 inches and the shadow box is 9 by 11 inches.
The title, sentenced, refers to the date of the initial article in the Chicago Tribune and the lifetime sentence that the victim received.
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| My elementary school photo |
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| The verdaille underpainting on my easel |
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| Sentenced 2016 |
