The Unrepresentable: Art & Sexual Violence

The Unrepresentable: Art & Sexual Violence
April 25th - 28th, 2017
Art Space on Main
135 West Main Street
Turlock, CA 95380
Exhibition Organized by:
The Feminists’ Equality Club of Stanislaus State and Dr. Staci Gem Schiewiller
Exhibition was funded by:
Associated Students Inc. (ASI), The Feminists’ Equality Club of Stanislaus State and
Dr. Staci Gem Schiewiller
table of
contents
Introduction by Tinna Savini
Paul Acevedo
Christopher Benson
Madison Bettencourt
Timothy Brown Jr.
Noelani Daniel-Gomes
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Maritza Diaz
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Acknowledgments:
Associated Students Inc. (ASI), Dean De Cocker, Matt Sahlit, Dr. Trystan Cotten, Tinna
Savini, Nikki Boudreau, Andrew Cain, and CSU Stanislaus Art Department.
Alyssa Moon
Nieko McDaniel
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Tinna Savini
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Copyright © 2017 The Feminists’ Equality Club of Stanislaus State and Dr. Staci Gem
Schiewiller
Hayley Simon
Natalie Wadlington
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26
Kolaya Wilson
28
Brentt Wong
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Catalogue Design: Matt Sahlit
Catalogue Photography: Maggie Gonzales
Opening Night
Feminists’ Equality Club Officers
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Photographs included were taken and used under the permission of the artists.
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Vision in the Unrepresentable
By: Tinna Savini, MFA
Unrepresentable: (Adj.) not capable of being represented.
Origin: mid-17th century from un + representable
(Oxford English dictionaries online)
The Unrepresentable: Art and Sexual Violence is the second art exhibition, organized
by the CSU Stanislaus Feminists’ Equality Club, in which students, faculty, and exhibitors
once again joined their voices with many other campuses, institutions, organizations,
survivors, and activists whose purpose is to raise awareness of the sexual violence too
painfully frequent in global society. As the exhibition title suggests, most of the works shown
in “Unrepresentable” attempt to picture those things we are not capable of representing or
comprehending with respect to the inhumanity connected to sexual assault and violence. In
the show we see visualized some of the solipsistic pathologies that can lead a person to so
disengage and to violate the reality of another person as to cause her/him physical violence
or psychological harm. Although the truth of such realities exists in life and in images, this
exhibition also speaks of the resilience of individual voices and collectively of images that
seed hope in the potentially cathartic effect of giving form to experience. In this way, these
efforts are not mere reportage of the meanness too often felt in our culture; rather, they
bring to consciousness a culture more humane and based on the realization of respect and
kindness toward ourselves and all other beings with whom we share this planet.
Many of the works visually reveal the intimate content of pain, fear, and suffering.
Images of bruised faces and hands, absent gazes, uncomfortably close touches from hands
not one’s own, blood, and exposed women’s bodies align with the broader theme addressing
the issues of violence and sexual assault in our society. These images show that violence,
sexual assault, and the ignorance of societal attitudes that attend such aggressions leave the
raw emotions of personal experiences unattended like free radicals waiting to congregate
into a cancer. The eruption of negative emotions and the violence that often attends them
are common enough that we need little explanation for some works. In one photograph by
Brentt Wong, Love Note (2017), we see two small pictures of a beautiful young woman’s
face set above a note with a few clearly legible handwritten sentences. We know that the
scrap of paper with text commenting on her appearance has actually been a precursor to
her assault. If we have any doubt, we need only look at the visual evidence of the large
black-and-blue bruising that her eye shows us. We know that the pictures of her taken
frontally and in profile are the kinds of views that are taken during a police report or clinical
examination. We shake our heads with the familiarity of knowing for ourselves, or from
someone close to us, that this is a custom so often passed down and too long tolerated. In
another image by Hayley Simon, Medusa (2017), we see the closed composition of a nude
female figure whose posture is contracted and whose head sinks between her two crossed
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arms. Her long, wind-blown hair flies up like a Gorgon vision, but instead of a source of
female power, all one can see is sorrow, much like the drawing of the same title by Van Gogh
of his lover Sien Hoornik (1882), slumped in dejected form.
Two works, which both address unwelcome touches, share content and polyptych
form but do not use the same medium. In the first work by Natalie Wadlington entitled Two
Acts (2016), two small, robustly-painted canvasses are juxtaposed, and each provides a
view of Philip Guston-like thin, naked, prickly-haired teenage arms and legs whose genders
appear to be that of a boy and a girl. The mingled body parts between the two images
express the awkwardness of a pressured sexual advance. While in the quadriptych work
by Christopher Benson, Affect/Effect (2017), the medium of the print serves to negate
the intimate warmth of the painterly approach in the first picture, which heightens the
awkwardness and anxiety one feels when looking at it. The repetition of the four pictures
of the same image placed side by side shows a large hand and partial arm touching the
asymmetrically-placed disembodied face of a beautiful young woman. The hand is not that
of the woman; in fact, we see nothing of her body beyond her face. In each of the prints,
her wide-open eyes are somewhat obscured by the clear glasses she wears. Yet the woman
does not seem alive by having her own body or eye function but only by the connection
of the hand to her face. Her realness is reduced to a fetishized memento, which is further
enforced by the smaller images of other young women in collage formed all around her face.
In the top pair, the word “GAZE” handwritten under one image and the word “BLEED” under
the second image of the four images cause one to wonder if we are seeing through the eyes
of a voyeur and/or perpetrator.
The content of some works addresses the more general theme of “Take Back the
Night,” the international event and nonprofit national organization whose mission it is
to make the world a safe enough place for women to walk alone at night without fear of
violence or molestation. In Kolaya Wilson’s Becoming Alive Again (2017), a watercolor image
of a tiny headless female torso with arms in a prayer position is placed at the center of a
larger circle in the middle of a rectangular format. The thin headless figure is not a horror,
but rather reminds one of the headless fertility pendants of prehistoric times. The tiny torso
image beckons us to envision our own heads atop the figure as it sits surrounded by the
curvilinear vines that form a symmetrical tree design. Below this are two triangular shapes
of green as fresh and verdant as the fresh growth of the seed-like center. Above in the upper
third of the image, coming from both the left and right corners and stretching inward, are
sturdy branches with lotus blossoms that compositionally conclude a diamond shape that
focuses the eye once again on the center of the tendril tree and mythic mother torso. This
is a memorable visualization that is like a vehicle we might use to realize a more kind and
conscious culture, free of sexual assault and all that is unpresentable in sexual and other
violence.
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paul
acevedo
My piece appropriates the narrative of the
Spanish song that my parents would sing to me
and my brothers when we were little, “[D]uérmete
niño duérmete ya, que viene el coco, y te comerá.”
It translates, “[S]leep boy, sleep now, the Coco is
coming, and he’ll eat you up.” This in an attempt to
draw a connection to the challenges faced by women
and men during the night. It is a personal response
to the idea of keeping a person away from danger by
singing the song and scaring the person from staying
up all night. My work invites the viewer to stand up
and to take back the night by not being afraid to stand
up for equality.
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Coco nunca más!, Linocut triptych, 2017, 5x6”
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christopher
benson
One subject that I needed to acknowledge
this year was the representation of Asian-American
women in media and culture. In American popular
culture, Asians and Asian Americans are categorized
and mislabeled and fall into tropes that have been
accepted widely in the media. This all came in
retrospect to an Ethnic Studies class I took last Fall
2016. I had my eyes opened in that class. I became
aware to the origins as to why Asian/Asian-American
peoples have been portrayed so negatively in popular
culture.
The images produced have to do with the figural
saturation, sublimation, and social integration that are
expected of Asian-American women. How can one
assimilate into a culture that still recognizes one as
alien without completely abandoning what makes one
special?
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Affect/Effect, Screen Print, 2017, 4 prints measuring 11x14”each
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madison
bettencourt
Working with a range of materials, I am inspired
by the ideals and stories of my immigrant grandmother
and the experiences of sexual assault and abusive
relationships. Exploring societal and contemporary art
issues of gender and identity, I apply this background
to my artwork. Through exploration of form and color,
I utilize found objects and their perceived meanings
as ways to critique such ideas as they may apply to
the viewer. Beginning with the memories of both my
grandmother and myself, I aim to incorporate elements
of found imagery and color through my artwork in a
way that can create a broader connection with my
piece and the viewer’s understanding.
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That Night, Mixed Media, 2017, 66”x13”x2”
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timothy
brown jr.
What is it about a story that eclipses space and time?
Sitting and listening to a person speak of a mythical world
surrounded by good and evil, morals, and lessons, it is here
that we gain an understanding of our surroundings. From our
first days on this planet we are read epic tales of heroes and
villains, kings and queens, old beggars, and wicked witches, but
when we grow to a certain age, suddenly adulthood steps in and
pushes these fantastical narratives aside for what is considered
real life. It is here that my work will push back.
Like so many, I have experienced some of the best and
worst of times, and it is here that I begin to create these narratives,
which encompass what would typically be swept under the
rug. It is with consideration and awareness that I remove this
rug and expose these serious issues in the guise of a fairy tale.
Issues, such as addiction, domestic violence, acceptance, race,
manipulation, sexual orientation, love, and finding a balance
between the light and dark side of human nature, are crucial and
delicate topics, requiring a dignified treatment, but necessary for
discussion.
Each narrative plays out in its own unique dramatic
fashion, allowing the severity of the topic to shine through,
beyond the weird and wondrous imagery. Like the tales that came
before, every new story has a lesson that must be understood. It
is important for the viewer to be willing to open his/her mind and
to accept this seemingly childish construct, all the while reading
material that is not meant for children.
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There is darkness that resides in each and every one
of us. While some would rather pretend that it does not exist,
I know that it is there, lurking behind a door, seemingly buried
underneath the ice, and scratching at the surface. It is these
deep-seeded emotions and feelings that act as catalysts for
my fairy tales. I want the viewer to take away whatever s/he can
from this work, if it helps him/her to understand that what s/he is
experiencing to be genuine and that his/her feelings are valid.
It is important to note that it is only through the dark that we can
experience the light, and it is only by experiencing brief moments
of pain that we can indulge in pleasure. Cautionary Affection, Oil on Panel, 2017, 24” x 24”
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noelani
daniel-gomes
I wrote poem after a friend breached a definite
line with me. It was while I was alone with him in a
city hours away from home. It had never happened
before, and I was stunned. It came up again later, and
he laughed, saying we were both drunk—when I was
not. Although he does not know my feelings about that
night even now, the poem was a balm for my troubled
mind. He has since moved on, but I will always carry
a part of that girl who hid in the red-colored bathroom
and cried.
Quiet
We must be quiet in this place.
These catacombs of rights and powers
strip supposed Amazons of strength—
inspire suffering
in spite of suffrage.
The quiet isn’t revenge.
It isn’t consent.
This quiet is not folly, lunacy, or hysteria.
It is not inebriation.
Not drunk on lack of touch, of yielding to strong hands.
It is fear.
Unthinking arms, a cage
with metal walls that my voice dies within,
in a breathless, hitching way—
but it is no compliment to you.
Trust is a dangerous commodity,
with so much counterfeit and debt.
In pain, I took your hand, seeking help—
bankrupting myself—
and still you collected interest.
Your hands wandered, like a miser over treasure—
a drugstore statue-turned-idol
with the help of liquor.
This tipple-touch is poisonous,
lingering for months like a cancer in my throat
that grows when I’m forced to smile—
to play at normalcy with you.
We ignore the sore between us—
this Cold War tête-à-tête, all friction and no feeling.
You laugh when you remember, and I laugh, too.
I have to.
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We must be quiet in this place.
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maritza
diaz
This semester I have been trying out a new
direction through painting and printmaking, and while
going down this path, I have discovered something
that I am passionate about. I am passionate about
showing the truth through imagery and text that allow
viewers to see what I have gone through as a woman
growing up today and also other women’s experiences.
I want to evoke emotion in viewers so that they can
also experience that exact feeling that was felt in that
exact moment in time so that we realize we are not
so different after all and should be supporting each
other regardless of gender and ethnicity. We are in a
time in society when we need to be together and even
stronger as one.
The techniques that I use to portray my imagery
are through composition, color, and text to effect
viewers so that they can come to understand and to
appreciate my work. When it comes to showing that
truth to viewers, I do not allow myself to hold back,
because as artists, I believe we should not let ourselves
be censored by audiences who want to avoid or to
hide it. This world has never been innocent, and I do
not want to conform to what society “thinks” I should
portray.
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Daily Experiences, Screen Print, 2017, 11x14” (Top)
It’s All Your Fault, Screen Print, 2017, 11x14” (Bottom)
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alyssa
moon
Much of my artwork deals with reflections of
past experiences and how I deal with them presently.
Growing up with domestic violence under a patriarchal
dominion has resulted in sadness and revolt in my
work. Depression, isolation, fear of love, distrust,
endurance, independence, and strength are some of
the feelings explored through my work. I attempt to pull
strength from my past with my artwork but also talk
about the intimate things that happen within myself,
as well as others who suffer quietly in violence and
how it follows them throughout life. My hope is that
I am giving a voice to the mothers who do not have
the strength to leave and to comfort survivors. Taking
back the night is important to me, because we should
not have to fear anything as women. We are powerful.
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I Stand, Acrylic on Paper 2017 Approx. 24x 11” (Top)
He Took Away My Heartstrings, Assemblage/Wood, 2017, Approx. 12in x 6in (Bottom)
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nieko
mcdaniel
The poem “Acid,” which was inspired by a
heartbreak that I personally endured, is an example of
my thought process on ascertaining the root of issues
that would lead to the heartbreak between a person
and me. From critically accessing the experience to
a basic form, I identified the problem as trauma that
others have caused us in the past. Trauma can be
a cycle, in which the offended can be the offender.
In turn we can become the monsters that we most
resent. The use of the word “acid” and the types of
acid are symbolic and metaphorical. My goal in writing
the poem was to speak to the reader and say be
careful of what you do, be mindful of your actions, and
be considerate of others as you do not and would not
like others to disrespect you in any form, so why do it
to others? Acid is in a way a poem of the golden rule.
At the end of the poem, I tell the reader to break the
cycle of trauma that people are victims of.
Acid Rain
The rain pours, it burns
Feeling the scorn of outside influences
The pain from their reign, the pain of the rain
An empath
Weathering the rain, the storm, the pain with them, for them, because of them
Soaking it in
Bathing in it
Drinking it in
To take all away from them
Becoming a pool
Olympic size
Beginning to overflow
A dam, on the verge of bursting
A sponge can only hold so much liquid
Trying to wring yourself out
The only way to let it out
Is to sweat, cry, and spit it out
Until you dry yourself out
In this sense, is it unhealthy to want to achieve dehydration?
Acid Sweat
It seems from the Acid Rain that acid sweat occurs
Probably because it is hot and burns
Humidity of the air, feeling the temperature rising
Sticky from the rain, but also your own sweat
The two are mixing; it is hard to tell which is which
The pain from the rain makes you sweat, because you are weathering it
The rain pouring down is not your fault, but it makes you work that much harder
It makes you sweat
Now the burn is coming from your own skin, your own work
Putting out so much energy, and more sweat runs
It is an infection, starting from your head, spreading to your toes
You are beginning to dehydrate
The liquid running off your skin
But it is no longer just the pain of the rain
It is also the pain of your sweat
And it is because of your weathering the pain
That in turn creates your own pain from within
But pain.... Pain also creates tears
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Acid Spit
Acid Tears
One by one more forces are weighing down on you
The pain of the rain from their reign
The pain of your sweat
But pain is pain... and it hurts
Pain creates tears, tears of acid
And these tears of acid burn because of the pain you are taking from the rain and the pain
of putting out your own sweat
Pain has generated from pain and is creating more pain
It is a cycle
You are becoming dehydrated
Tears running from tears and creating more tears
Crying because you are crying
But then you begin to start drying because you are crying, sweating, and the rain keeps
running off your skin
But it is still pain, it still burns
The pain from all forces starts to make your mind go insane
Your pain creates animosity toward all the inflicted pain on yourself
Hatred
The pain makes you full of pain, Pain-full
But you no longer want to weather this pain alone
Now you want to inflict pain
So others will also weather the same
So now you spit, you spit the spit of acid
Now the pain is coming from you in the most disgusting way
Because of the pain of the rain from their reign, your sweat...your tears
So why care if you spit acid?
It is just another way to get rid of your pain?
So you get rid of the pain by spitting
What is it more to get rid of the pain by spitting since you have already been weathering the
rain, sweat, and tears?
You only want to do it YOUR way to get rid of the pain
And it seems like the only way to obtain.... Dehydration
But you do not realize that you are starting to spit on others, spitting the spit of acid
You are becoming what you resented from others, what they had done to you
You are becoming the acid rain to others because you spit
You spit on their heads
No need for pissing acid, because acid spit works just as good
Wrongfully used as if to release acid piss
Now you have become the pain of the acid rain. Inflicting pain on them
Your reign of acid rain is the pain others now fear
See it is a cycle
The spit became because of your tears
Behind all anger is sorrow
Creating your tears and fears
Your tears of acid
It can create the cycle in you again
So then it all eventually turns back into acid spit
And that acid spit becomes the acid rain on people’s heads
Pain.... Pain of the rain, sweat, tears, then spit, then rain, then sweat, then tears, then spit,
then rain, then sweat, then tears, then spit!
But tears are the worst
You do not like them yourself
So why give them to others?
Do not spit acid rain, do not spit at all
See it is a cycle
And it is up to you to keep the cycle going
Or break the cycle...
Break it through Dehydration
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tinna
savini
A general theme in my work is the observation of
emergent patterns and how the accumulated relationships of
those patterns are contained for examination in a pictorial space.
This is somewhat like capturing an inflight creature for a closer
look before in your open hand it flies away. Traditional means
and methods are relied on in the pairing of painted, verticallyoriented,
slight rectangles and longer, clearly horizontal,
rectangular canvases. In the vertical panels, a human presence
is meant to be invoked while the longer horizontal panels offer
the subject of landscape--not as much as a natural passage but
as a perceptual one. Whether human or natural, the forms seek
definition from each other as boundaries and borders, “self and
other,” intended literally in their interdependence and non-literally
in their meanings.
Some years ago when I finished the piece Orb and
Shadow, I immediately knew it had to do with a “woman’s view”
of the world in a cosmic sense. The circles and curves abide in
the long tradition of softer, more flowing forms, representing the
feminine form (in Art History). The expanse of diaphanous veils
and flat, shape-shifted structures simultaneously reveal and cloak
like the moon in its phases. In that fugitive field, the captured
sense states their interdependence to the whole, and in so doing,
explore the broadest content of “relationships,” particularly that
of ours to others, to ourselves, and to our environment and
planet.
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In considering the idea of “Taking Back the Night,” I
thought of the night sky and the poised lunar “orb” in this work
as metaphors for the realization of equality for women’s ability to
be out at night, wishing under the stars without fear of violence
or of being violated. This sense of safety is at its core a statement
of boundaries and relationships to ourselves and to our fellow
humans, expressed not as a binary gender classification or a
sense of separateness, but rather as properties contained in
each of us in various proportion and measure, and like studying
the stars, it is how we know our place in the universe. Orb & Shadow, Oil on Canvas, 1999, 26” X 72”
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hayley
simon
This piece is about the preconceived ideas
of a woman’s role or experience that shape her
impressions.
To me, an example of this is the fate of Medusa,
a tragic Greek victim painted as a villain by those
around her.
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Medusa, Serigraph Print, 2017, 11”x15”
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natalie
wadlington
I am fascinated by a painting’s ability to both
reveal and conceal: to represent a thing yet elude
understanding it. On the painted surface, forms
are able to occupy both an articulate identity and
an inarticulate impression, and it is through this
process of showing and disguising that powerful
storytelling can take shape. In my paintings, figures
and spaces come together in narrative compositions
that both illustrate an idea and express its emotional/
psychological implications. I am primarily a symbolic
thinker: I understand and contextualize thought and
experience through metaphor and analogy. These
symbolic representations of ideas unfold in narratives
that are conceptually elaborate and specific. But
in its translation from story to image, the language
of the idea is rearticulated as an experience that is
wordless, material, and personal. In painting, this idea
is contained within the two-dimensional limitations
of a canvas that is both static and a-temporal. This
constraint can be awkward and unsettling as the
viewer tries to navigate within the wordless world
of a figurative painting that is both speaking and
withholding. The unsettling feeling of the undefinable
is what inspires me to render imagery and scenes in
paint. In paintings as in life, interactions between the
subject and the other or between the subject and the
self are full of ambiguity. It is through ambiguity that we
come closer to the complexities of human experience.
If art is a medium between the physical world and the
inner psyche of the artist, then my paintings serve not
only to communicate my symbolic storytelling, but
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also to explore the elusive, emotional potentiality of
dynamic human experiences.
The Mouse on His Wedding Night, Oil on Canvas, 2017, 48”x48” (Top Left)
In and Out, Oil on Canvas, 2016, 24”x30” (Top Right)
Two Acts, Oil on Wood Panel, 2016, 1”x2” (Bottom)
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kolaya
wilson
Kolaya Wilson is an artist who is passionate
in her belief to spread the awareness of sexual
harassment and violence in her community. Her
artwork reflects instances of such acts that have
occurred in her life and the emotions those acts have
brought to the surface. Wilson believes in the power
that art has to fight the many forms of sexual violence
against all sexes and genders. She promotes equality
and the power of women’s rights in her work.
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Becoming Alive Again, Watercolor, 2017, 18”x24” (Left)
Emotional Progression, Mixed Media, 2017, 16”x12”x12” (Right)
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entt
wong
I have always been inspired by the way
photographs are able to capture and to convey
emotions. A single photograph can relay a unique
message for each individual viewer. It is this fact that
inspires me to produce work that viewers will find
meaningful.
With these photographs, my aim is to capture
the intense emotions that embody the Take Back the
Night event. I want to present the issues and the harsh
realities of sexual violence. These issues deserve to be
highlighted so that the voices and messages of those
who have been assaulted can be heard in hopes that
we can all, without fear, take back the night.
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Love Note, Digital Photograph, 2017, 8x10 photograph in an 11x14” frame (Top)
Silenced, Digital Photograph, 2017, 8x10 photograph in an 11x14” frame (Middle)
Interface, Digital Photograph, 2017, 8x10 photograph in an 11x14” frame (Bottom)
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opening
night
(Top Left) Dr. Trystan Cotten speaking at “The
Unrepresentable” opening night, Tuesday, April 25,
2017, at Art Space on Main.
(Top Right) Audience for “The Unrepresentable”
opening night, Tuesday, April 25, 2017, at Art Space
on Main.
(Bottom Left) Artist Timothy Brown Jr. and his mother
Paulette Gregory at “The Unrepresentable” opening
night, Tuesday, April 25, 2017, at Art Space on Main.
(Bottom Right) Dr. Trystan Cotten speaking at “The
Unrepresentable” opening night, Tuesday, April 25,
2017, at Art Space on Main.
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the feminists’
equality club
Maggie Gonzales
President
2016 - 2017
Amanda Schemmel
Vice President
2016 - 2017
Secretary Elect
2017 - 2018
Nieko McDaniel
Student Coordinator
2016 - 2017
President Elect
2017 - 2018
Kolaya Wilson
Treasurer Elect
2017 - 2018
Maritza Diaz
Student Coordinator Elect
2017 - 2018
Lersa Shahbaz
Dr. Staci Gem Scheiwiller
Treasurer
Faculty Adviser
2016 - 2017
2015 - Present
Vice President Elect
2017 - 2018
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