Cruel Love

The experiences depicted in these prints are a journey beginning in childhood. A time of corrupted innocence when physical, mental and sexual abuse was the norm. The images are of a young girls struggle with abuse and neglect and a search for a healthier life beyond the fragmented and chaotic existence of living with violence.
The figures in the prints are of a defenseless child or a tortured and twisted adult existing in an alienated and often violent setting. The figures are drawn in a childlike fashion or appear disjointed and twisted in their brightly colored environment. It is the unreal and exaggerated world of the circus. It is the outside appearance masking a darker nature. It is the softness of a defenseless child and an adult twisted into deformity.

Why do women remain in violent and emotionally abusive relationships? It is a complex problem that often originates in childhood, and is grounded in cultural attitudes. Many women feel they have nowhere to go, and no one to turn to for help. They are ashamed, embarrassed, and feel they are at fault. They are caught in a cycle of violence and denial about their circumstances. They conceal what is happening to them. Abused women come from all socioeconomic backgrounds.
Children who are abused often find themselves in similar abusive adult relationships, primarily because they are attracted to what is familiar. They develop the coping mechanism of denial and an ability to fantasize in order to deal with their difficult lives. These mechanisms in adulthood can trap the abused in violent and destructive living conditions. By denying the reality of their circumstances, they suffer mental and physical debilities. The extreme cases are admitted to hospital with shattered bones, to mental institutions after suicide attempts, and, too frequently, to cemeteries. Most have lives of extreme anxiety and fear, where they are “walking on egg shells” to avoid pain and verbal abuse.

Once an abused child matures, their emotional paradigm can be inverted. Caring can be equated with rejection and abuse. Love can mean cruelty and pain. After all, these were the primary experiences in their childhood with adult “care” and “love”. And so, it isn’t surprising that they are often drawn into adult relationships offering much of the same. The abuser in a relationship is also a victim. They too can be responding to psychological abuse from their childhood. They are interested in power and imposing control.

With professional help, these destructive living patterns can be understood and broken while healthier ones developed. Shelters for battered women provide a refuge. They can offer a new beginning for a woman and her children and a break from intolerable living conditions. Unfortunately, there are too few shelters and their funding is precarious.The abuse of women and children is not a subject the public wants to confront. Abuse takes place in secrecy and this very secrecy maintains this shady, twisted and dark world.

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