Number 04

48x48" mixed media on canvas

Theme

Trying to make sense of a situation that feels confusing and hard to see clearly. Thinking about something over and over to try and understand it.

The Interview

She was hanging out at a friend’s house one night. They weren’t particularly close friends, but part of the same friend group and would all go to the bar together on occasion.

He asked her if she would like a drink, and she said ok. He went to the kitchen and came back with a glass for her, and after that, it gets blurry.

She woke up at home the next morning, sore and bruised. She texted him, “What happened last night?”. He didn’t reply.

“I knew something had happened because I was bruised. It hurt.” Her body bore the evidence of rape, but it was hard to wrap her mind around.

She describes her memory of that night like photographs. They are brief snapshots, like still images emerging out of a darkness:

She remembered a friend coming to the door to hang out, but he sent them away.

She remembered him turning off the lights.

She has a brief snapshot of memory from the incident that caused her pain and bruising, but “I couldn’t feel anything” at that time.

She remembered crawling to his car to go home. She had his car key and was reaching to put it into the car door to unlock it but couldn’t, and he was laughing. It wasn’t an actual key, just a fob to open the door.

Eventually, she told his friends and roommates what happened. Their response was very…neutral. They thought it sucked, but they weren’t really surprised. Like, “Yeah, I guess he’s kind of like that.” Because the abuser was a mutual friend to so many of her friends, it was impossible to eliminate his presence from her life and he remained on the fringes of her social circle. This was difficult to navigate since the mutual friends who had been told what happened didn’t seem to care. She had to assert some boundaries, “I don’t want him at my apartment, he raped me.”

Years have passed since then and he is no longer on the fringes of her life. She said she’s made peace with what happened, and she’s moved on both emotionally and literally. She bought a house in a new town, and is happily married and enjoys being a mom. Reflecting on this past experience, she expressed that the thing that bothers her most is this idea of being forced into something that she didn’t want and that wasn’t in alignment with her values and who she saw herself to be. She would never have slept with someone if she wasn’t in a relationship with them. That was one of her personal values. This idea of being forced to do something thats in contradiction to who you are as a person, to have no control or ability to be true to your own beliefs or feelings, is the hardest part. “That wasn’t me.”

Artist Notes

This painting is very dark both because the incident happened at night in the dark, but also because of the feeling of darkness and confusion when we try to make sense of a difficult situation. The pink X on the lower left marks an area of purplish paint referencing the bruising she experienced, the X on the drinking glass makes a visual connection between the drink and the bruising. The looping black lines symbolize thoughts looping in our memory. Dark, figurative shapes reference her “snapshots” of memory.