Comprising over 20 works of art the Trauma series is about the after effects of sexual violence. Developed for the graduation show at Warren Wilson College, this series is available for shows or purchase.
There’s no convenient word for people who experience PTSD after sexual trauma. “Victim” implies powerlessness, and asks for pity. Recently, the more popular word “survivor” suggests heroism, and a battle that can be won or lost. Most days, we are neither victims nor survivors: just humans to whom something has happened.
The paintings below are available for individual purchase and to be shown as a body of work. Some prints may also be available.
1. Masquerade 17 x 14 inches
Years after a traumatic experience, it may still have a dramatic effect on you, but people don’t want to hear about it. You hear “But that was a long time ago,” or “Why aren’t you over it yet?” This is empathy fatigue. When someone is empathizing, they must emotionally and mentally put themselves in your place. It can be draining and, in time, people distance themselves from these conversations. Those who have suffered trauma are forced to wear the mask of a healed person in order to function and keep going.
2. Growth 19 ½ x 27 ½ inches
Personhood or identity can be unnatural and malleable after trauma. In order to cope, one changes the idea of self and of history to fit the story of what has happened. Oysters are marine filter feeders, attached and calcified, living on detritus and decay. Just like that, she has calcified her issues and let them attach onto her.
3. Constancy 29 x 16 ½ inches
Sometimes, you may look back at a younger untouched you and not recognize who it is, yet there is a constancy to a person. Horseshoe crabs have been on this earth for 450 million years and remain the same. Their blood is blue. Even though you change through your experiences, there are true bits of you that stay the same, much like blue blood in veins that never reach the surface, untold secrets. Pain can course through the body, only visible in a blue vein.
4. The Time of the Season 13 x 19 inches
Much like depression, memories of trauma can sometimes be brought back by the onset of winter. This feeling is not specific to sexual trauma, but can apply to all trauma and upsetting events. But years after “solving” or overcoming a traumatic incident, it becomes frustrating to be thrown back into the full swing of it by a change of season.
5. It’s Better When You’re Not Here 17 x 23 inches; 17 x 23 inches
Years after sexual trauma, one can still experience flashbacks. While in a wonderful moment with a trusted partner, for no reason at all you can be thrown back to the deep horror of a memory that’s much louder than just a memory. Victims struggle to tell your partner that, yes, they did everything right and, yes, you care for them and just because…it felt wrong. Partners can feel defensive and hurt, and victims can feel crazy and unjustified in their reactions.
6. All of the Strings Unsaid 18 x 23 ½ inches
Everyone you know has a different opinion and perspective on your experience. Each person has their own memories of your life that they believe to be true. A victim can feel oppressed by others’ thoughts and all that is unsaid: like society’s pictures of victims, like men’s thoughts of victims, and women’s impressions of victims, institutions’ views of victims and teachers’ views of victims. What are they expecting?
7. Dingos 16 x 25 inches
Maybe they are just boys; maybe they’re not. It could be a group of wild animals, or it could be a pack out hunting. A group of men who are decent human beings can become predators in the eyes of a person suffering from PTSD.
8. Let the Snow not Melt 16 x 25 inches
Snow represents innocence, a soft quiet blanket that covers everything, suggesting that it is possible to return to a cleaner, sweeter time from before. Under the snow, deep in the earth, is a bird skeleton with bones so delicate and breakable they might shatter if they are ever exposed.
9. Comfort and Anguish…Returning to What You Know 18 x 25 inches
After a scarring experience, one starts to expect bad things will happen and will in fact react negatively if anyone strays from that pattern. At times, trauma victims prefer manipulative relationships, because in healthy ones they are always waiting for the other shoe to drop. At least in manipulative relationships, you know what to expect and you know your role.
10. The Antler Cage 14 x 17 inches
A woman can be trapped in a simple role by the inclinations of men, a caged role where, at least, everyone knows where and what they are supposed to be. Humans seek homeostasis; they need consistency and reliability. We succumb to the human need for predictability, even to our own detriment.
11. That’s Not the Shape of My Heart 13 x 19 inches
A triangle is imposed over this woman, an unnatural and uncomfortable fit. She is much more that a shape or a gender. She is looking right at the viewer, daring them to see her for who she is as a woman.
12. Branding 35 x 15 inches
Labeling someone a rape victim takes away their autonomy and their personal strength and story. It flattens their character and takes away their value. They become not a human but a statement, an idea of an event.
13. Handelier 19 x 26 inches
We fetishize the young, the youthful and the innocent. We make our little girls grow up too fast, then ask grown women to remain little girls—shaving body hair and starving off weight that sits around our curves. The ideal of beauty is unattainable, and the desire to possess it looms as a threat over a young girl. Waiting over her are all of these hands that want—delicate and alluring, because the real threats never look very menacing.
14. Schadenfreude 19 ½ x 27 ½
Harvester butterflies, which are indigenous to North America, are beautiful but also carnivorous. When someone romanticizes every aspect of you—your appearance, your voice, and your story, your history—it almost doesn’t feel like you anymore, as if they have created a whole other person. Just like the butterflies, this idealization can consume.
15. Rebirth and Regrowth 19 x 26 inches
Bees represent the strengthening of the feminine—a community made up of sisters, in a home based on the strong shape of the hexagon, with the healing properties of honey. The cherry tree represents rebirth. But healing is uncomfortable: while it is something to strive for, you have to keep holding on to the cherry tree branch; the bees crawl on your exposed skin and may sting you.
16. Growth 2 18 ½ x 26 inches
A traumatic incident can become a part of a person and their identity. We say to ourselves “I am fucked up,” or believe that I am what happened to me. One learns eventually that this is not true, but for a time it is fully and completely believable. Plants do not grow naturally on a human; their cellular structure is completely different to that of animal cells. Yet this woman is perfectly content in having these almost tumorous growths; in her mind they are beautiful.
17. Just Thinking About Tomorrow 23 ½ x 29 ½ inches
Whatever issues there are, in the night they become so much deeper. The shadows get darker; the good things, smaller. There is something more wild and dangerous about the night that can be exhilarating but also entrapping and horrifying. You can lose sight of who you are, get lost in the dangers, sorrows, wildness and truth of the night.
18. L’appel du Vide (Call of the Void) 18 x 24 inches
Once you think that you deserved to have bad things happen to you, the bad things are almost more captivating. They are enjoyable and you start to wish for them. The call of the void refers to the feeling you get when looking over a cliff and something wills you to jump, not out of suicidal urges but just out of a strange compulsion.
Years after a traumatic experience, it may still have a dramatic effect on you, but people don’t want to hear about it. You hear “But that was a long time ago,” or “Why aren’t you over it yet?” This is empathy fatigue. When someone is empathizing, they must emotionally and mentally put themselves in your place. It can be draining and, in time, people distance themselves from these conversations. Those who have suffered trauma are forced to wear the mask of a healed person in order to function and keep going.
2. Growth 19 ½ x 27 ½ inches
Personhood or identity can be unnatural and malleable after trauma. In order to cope, one changes the idea of self and of history to fit the story of what has happened. Oysters are marine filter feeders, attached and calcified, living on detritus and decay. Just like that, she has calcified her issues and let them attach onto her.
3. Constancy 29 x 16 ½ inches
Sometimes, you may look back at a younger untouched you and not recognize who it is, yet there is a constancy to a person. Horseshoe crabs have been on this earth for 450 million years and remain the same. Their blood is blue. Even though you change through your experiences, there are true bits of you that stay the same, much like blue blood in veins that never reach the surface, untold secrets. Pain can course through the body, only visible in a blue vein.
4. The Time of the Season 13 x 19 inches
Much like depression, memories of trauma can sometimes be brought back by the onset of winter. This feeling is not specific to sexual trauma, but can apply to all trauma and upsetting events. But years after “solving” or overcoming a traumatic incident, it becomes frustrating to be thrown back into the full swing of it by a change of season.
5. It’s Better When You’re Not Here 17 x 23 inches; 17 x 23 inches
Years after sexual trauma, one can still experience flashbacks. While in a wonderful moment with a trusted partner, for no reason at all you can be thrown back to the deep horror of a memory that’s much louder than just a memory. Victims struggle to tell your partner that, yes, they did everything right and, yes, you care for them and just because…it felt wrong. Partners can feel defensive and hurt, and victims can feel crazy and unjustified in their reactions.
6. All of the Strings Unsaid 18 x 23 ½ inches
Everyone you know has a different opinion and perspective on your experience. Each person has their own memories of your life that they believe to be true. A victim can feel oppressed by others’ thoughts and all that is unsaid: like society’s pictures of victims, like men’s thoughts of victims, and women’s impressions of victims, institutions’ views of victims and teachers’ views of victims. What are they expecting?
7. Dingos 16 x 25 inches
Maybe they are just boys; maybe they’re not. It could be a group of wild animals, or it could be a pack out hunting. A group of men who are decent human beings can become predators in the eyes of a person suffering from PTSD.
8. Let the Snow not Melt 16 x 25 inches
Snow represents innocence, a soft quiet blanket that covers everything, suggesting that it is possible to return to a cleaner, sweeter time from before. Under the snow, deep in the earth, is a bird skeleton with bones so delicate and breakable they might shatter if they are ever exposed.
9. Comfort and Anguish…Returning to What You Know 18 x 25 inches
After a scarring experience, one starts to expect bad things will happen and will in fact react negatively if anyone strays from that pattern. At times, trauma victims prefer manipulative relationships, because in healthy ones they are always waiting for the other shoe to drop. At least in manipulative relationships, you know what to expect and you know your role.
10. The Antler Cage 14 x 17 inches
A woman can be trapped in a simple role by the inclinations of men, a caged role where, at least, everyone knows where and what they are supposed to be. Humans seek homeostasis; they need consistency and reliability. We succumb to the human need for predictability, even to our own detriment.
11. That’s Not the Shape of My Heart 13 x 19 inches
A triangle is imposed over this woman, an unnatural and uncomfortable fit. She is much more that a shape or a gender. She is looking right at the viewer, daring them to see her for who she is as a woman.
12. Branding 35 x 15 inches
Labeling someone a rape victim takes away their autonomy and their personal strength and story. It flattens their character and takes away their value. They become not a human but a statement, an idea of an event.
13. Handelier 19 x 26 inches
We fetishize the young, the youthful and the innocent. We make our little girls grow up too fast, then ask grown women to remain little girls—shaving body hair and starving off weight that sits around our curves. The ideal of beauty is unattainable, and the desire to possess it looms as a threat over a young girl. Waiting over her are all of these hands that want—delicate and alluring, because the real threats never look very menacing.
14. Schadenfreude 19 ½ x 27 ½
Harvester butterflies, which are indigenous to North America, are beautiful but also carnivorous. When someone romanticizes every aspect of you—your appearance, your voice, and your story, your history—it almost doesn’t feel like you anymore, as if they have created a whole other person. Just like the butterflies, this idealization can consume.
15. Rebirth and Regrowth 19 x 26 inches
Bees represent the strengthening of the feminine—a community made up of sisters, in a home based on the strong shape of the hexagon, with the healing properties of honey. The cherry tree represents rebirth. But healing is uncomfortable: while it is something to strive for, you have to keep holding on to the cherry tree branch; the bees crawl on your exposed skin and may sting you.
16. Growth 2 18 ½ x 26 inches
A traumatic incident can become a part of a person and their identity. We say to ourselves “I am fucked up,” or believe that I am what happened to me. One learns eventually that this is not true, but for a time it is fully and completely believable. Plants do not grow naturally on a human; their cellular structure is completely different to that of animal cells. Yet this woman is perfectly content in having these almost tumorous growths; in her mind they are beautiful.
17. Just Thinking About Tomorrow 23 ½ x 29 ½ inches
Whatever issues there are, in the night they become so much deeper. The shadows get darker; the good things, smaller. There is something more wild and dangerous about the night that can be exhilarating but also entrapping and horrifying. You can lose sight of who you are, get lost in the dangers, sorrows, wildness and truth of the night.
18. L’appel du Vide (Call of the Void) 18 x 24 inches
Once you think that you deserved to have bad things happen to you, the bad things are almost more captivating. They are enjoyable and you start to wish for them. The call of the void refers to the feeling you get when looking over a cliff and something wills you to jump, not out of suicidal urges but just out of a strange compulsion.