Art Herstory Modern Soul

** WARNING: the following article contains material that may be harmful or traumatizing for some viewers. These works discuss and depict sexual/racial/gender violence, body horror and child sexual abuse. Resources are available at the end of the article.**

Horrors, the unexplained, compulsions, trauma. These themes come to mind around spooky season but it is also a time to be reminded that real horrors do exist and have existed. While glimmering inspirations can strike artists to action, many dark aspects can also lead an artist to create. Art doesn’t have to be beautiful or serene to be a masterpiece. In these terrifying creations lies a bit of living soul. A piece of emotion, a thread of something unable to be seen. The ghost in the machine, as it’s colloquially known. You can feel the energy, the unease, the fear, the sick creep up your throat, when you’re in the presence of the vessel. Sometimes the universe goes farther and the unexplained attach themselves to works, forever haunting, tormenting, calling to, those who dare to gaze upon them. Other times it’s the collective traumas of human suffering which evokes discomfort with those who sit with intense and thought-provoking works. Horrors persist in this world no matter how often we try to shy away or hide from them. The least we can do is meet the ghosts head on…and hope we don’t lose our minds.

The following works are meant to disturb and confront you.

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Appassionata [Passionate] – Carol Rama 1940 –

Carol Rama’s mother was committed to a psychiatric clinic when Rama was only 15, three years after her father’s suicide. With no one to help her cope with her mother’s mental health or her father’s death. Rama turned to art to process her pain. She found a voice in her art, obsessed with portraying the horrors of existing in the world as a female. She was one of the earliest ‘horror based feminist art’ creators and much of the contemporary movement can thank her for creating a foundation to create grotesque work to express what it means to live in a female body. Inspired by visting her mother in the clinic her subjects consist mainly of women she saw in the clinic. Her work stands as a reminder of what has been done to women over the last centuries. Psychiatry has been a tool for silencing women for centuries. Not only this but women made up the majority of lobotomies in the 19th and 20th centuries. Fathers, husbands and Doctors could easily call for lobotomies to be preformed on their “troublesome” wives or daughters. In 1952 a study found that by 1952, 50,000 patients had been lobotomized in the United States and Canada. The study also shows that by 1942 alone, 75% of lobotomy recipients by lobotomy creator Walter Freeman were women.

Rama gave these women a voice, on purpose or not, her artistic need to process her pain let those she witnessed share a piece of their suffering so that we may never forget what has been done.

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I Can’t Be A Bride Anymore – Yuko Tatsushima 1999 –

The mysterious artist Tatsushima’s works focus on the disturbing and macabre. This particular work represents sexual violence and its aftermath. The subject, having had her bridegroom’s rights stolen, stands in fear and anguish. This horrific concept of the bridegroom owning his wife’s virginity is an old one and yet still practiced in some parts of the world. Many women suffer shame and devaluation at having lost their virginity before marriage — consensually or not. This piece is so physiologically charged that it became a very popular creepypasta. People claimed it was tied to the death poem Tomino’s Hell by Saijō Yaso, where if you read the poem death soon finds you. Apart from this unfounded connection, I Can’t Be A Bride Anymore will no doubt leave you feeling uncomfortable… do you feel the pit in your stomach? You should. Women’s value being based on virginity is still a rampant issue in our world today. In 2021 Yemeni actress Intisar al-Hammadi was detained and forced to endure virginity testing due to accusations of being a prostitute and indecent by posting videos without a headscarf covering. In November 2021 she was sentenced to five years in prison for ‘committing and indecent act’. Virginity testing is still widely practiced in many countries around the world and was only just made illegal in the UK in 2022.

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Red Rack of Those Ravaged and Unconsenting – Doreen Garner 2018 –

Doreen Garner’s work asks us to face and discuss the violence done onto Black female bodies in America through medical exploitation. Infused with the traumas of so many Black women at the hands of men such as Dr. James Marion Sims, a gynecologist who preformed vaginal operations on enslaved Black women without anesthesia or consent. She produces body horror pieces meant to discomfort and sicken. I feel this work is so immediately important given what has been happening to Black bodies in the United States even today. We must never forget that today, in 2025, Adriana Smith a nurse and expecting mother in Georgia USA, was dead and kept on life support against her family’s wishes in order for her body to carry her unborn child to term due to Georgia’s abortion laws. When Adriana went to the hospital in February 2025 with headache concerns the hospital turned her away as they often do to women (dismissing Black women’s health concerns has been a problem for decades). She died, yes died, in the hospital the next day. She didn’t go into a coma — she died. However, due to Georgia’s LIFE Act the hospital determined to keep her body on life support until May because they legally had to make her body carry the child to term. The family had no say. The state of Georgia used Adriana Smith’s body as an incubator. They extracted her child by C-section in May after more than 90 days on life support because her body was decaying and threatening the child’s life. The state of Georgia desecrated Adriana’s body and tormented her family. She is not alone in this never ending violence against Black women. Their souls demand we see and feel their pain, and so, Garner gives them a voice.

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Our Little Secret –Suzzan Blac 2000-2004 –

Suzzan Blac lived a tragic and haunting childhood. As the survivor of childhood sexual abuse and sex trafficking she needed to find a way to outlet her silent suffering. Originally painting forty images which she never intended to show the public, she released them for public view when she determined that there were others like her who needed representation and a place to offset their silent suffering. She is now an advocate for other survivors to speak out and seek community. According to UNICEF around 650 million girls and women worldwide (1 in 5) alive today have experienced sexual violence as children. This includes 370 million (1 in 8) experiencing rape or sexual assault. UNICEF also reports that 410 to 530 million boys and men (1 in 7) globally have experienced sexual violence during childhood with around 1 in 11 experiencing rape or sexual assault.

Her work is visceral, disturbing, moving, dark. I suggest you all go and view the rest of her work here. They are psychological masterpieces imbued with vulnerability, pain, but also reclamation.

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The Murder of Allen Schindler – Matthew Wettlaufer 2006 –

This blog serves to act as an art space in a more perfect world where marginalized voices aren’t silenced and stories aren’t erased. In this way, while this blog is predominantly woman focused, our corner of the internet would be lacking without all of our LGBTQIA+ artists. So let’s look at Matthew Wettlaufer’s terrifying and saddening representation of the death of Allen Schindler, a naval officer who was killed by his shipmates in 1992. He was beaten to death because he was gay. Wettlaufer’s work is focused on bringing attention to the violence perpetrated against the male gay community (specifically in the military) but we can, and should, look further to the violence done to the LGBTQIA+ community as a whole. Living in Germany there is a constant reminder that this group of people were systematically included in the holocaust along with Jewish people. In a study conducted by the European Union 1 in 10 people say they have experienced violence on the basis of gender and gender expression and 2 in 3 report hate-motivated harassment. With today’s continued attack on the community by leaders such as Trump this fear is ever present.

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This October while we enjoy spooky month, horror movies, ghosts, and creepy themes let’s not forget the true horrors that persist. The horrors and traumas and thrills that inspire the scary genre we enjoy can come from very real darkness.

If you or someone you know is suffering from trauma, racial or domestic violence or sexual violence you (they) are not alone. Below are crisis and support hotlines for the United States, Germany and the EU. If I’ve missed your country put your country’s crisis line in the comments to help readers.

Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Hotline USA (RAINN) – 1-800-656-4673

National Domestic Violence Hotline USA – 1-800-799-7233

Call Blackline USA (Hotline for Racial Violence Support) – 1-800-604-5841

Nationwide Suicide & Crisis Line USA – 988

Victim Support European Union

Nationwide Destress Helpline for Violence Against Women Germany– +49 08000 116 016

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Bibliography

“Doreen Garner: Revolted.” New Museum, https://www.newmuseum.org/exhibition/doreen-lynette-garner-revolted/.

“Doreen Garner: Red Rack of Those Ravaged and Unconsenting.” Art Basel, https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artwork/70989/Doreen-Garner-Red-Rack-of-Those-Ravaged-and-Unconsenting?lang=en.

“Doreen Garner: Steal, Kill and Destroy: A Thief Who Intended Them Maximum Harm / Red Rack of Those Ravaged and Unconsenting.” Halle für Kunst Steiermark, https://halle-fuer-kunst.at/en/guide/exhibitions/doreen-garner-steal-kill-and-destroy-a-thief-who-intended-them-maximum-harm/2810-red-rack-of-those-ravaged-and-unconsenting/.

“The Harrowing Figurative Paintings of Suzzan Blac.” Art of Eric Wayne, 16 Dec. 2019, https://artofericwayne.com/2019/12/16/the-harrowing-figurative-paintings-of-suzzan-blac/.

“New Paintings Honor Gay Martyrs.” Jesus in Love Blog, 3 Mar. 2010, https://jesusinlove.blogspot.com/2010/03/new-paintings-honor-gay-martyrs.html.

“Past Work.” Matthew Wettlaufer, https://www.matthewwettlaufer.com/past-work.html.

Ramaswamy, Chitra. “Carol Rama’s Art Is Feminine Horror — and That’s What Makes It So Powerful.” HuffPost, 27 Apr. 2017, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/carol-rama-art-feminine-horror_n_5900d701e4b081a5c0fa00ee.

“Suzzan Blac Discusses Her Life, Trauma and Extraordinary Art.” Nordic Model Now!, 12 Aug. 2022, https://nordicmodelnow.org/2022/08/12/suzzan-blac-discusses-her-life-trauma-and-extraordinary-art/.

“These Contemporary Women Artists Are Obsessed with the Grotesque.” Artsy, 16 Mar. 2017, https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-contemporary-women-artists-obsessed-grotesque.

“A Short History of Psychiatry’s Mistreatment of Women.” Time, 21 June 2021, https://time.com/6074783/psychiatry-history-women-mental-health/.

“Women in Psychiatry: Past, Present and Future.” National Library of Medicine, 2018, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5962395/.

“Yuko Tatsushima.” Medium, 7 July 2021, https://medium.com/@2202221d/yuko-tatsushima-7261ddd6ede2.

“‘Witches’ and ‘Hysteria’: How Women Were Controlled by Pseudoscience.” BBC News, 3 Mar. 2024, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1jwl9l9yneo.

“‘Virginity Testing’: A Human Rights Violation, with No Scientific Basis.” UN News, 17 Oct. 2018, news.un.org/en/story/2018/10/1023401.

“Yemen: Actress Arbitrarily Detained at Risk of Forced ‘Virginity Testing’.” Amnesty International, 7 May 2021, www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/05/yemen-actress-arbitrarily-detained-at-risk-of-forced-virginity-testing/.

“Fast Facts: Violence against Children Widespread, Affecting Millions Globally.” UNICEF, (date not specified), www.unicef.org/press-releases/fast-facts-violence-against-children-widespread-affecting-millions-globally.

“Virginity Testing, Hymenoplasty Ban — UK.” CNN, 3 Feb. 2022, edition.cnn.com/2022/02/03/uk/virginity-testing-hymenoplasty-ban-uk-asequals-intl-cmd/index.html.