Bloody Moon or a Red Splatter on the Wall

If you have ever seen the Roman Polanski’s movie Bitter Moon from 1992, you will realize the reason and the source of inspiration for this title. Ecstatic love, then abandonment and revenge sweet as honey – are crucial for the story. The woman is treated there only as a sexual object, with a (short) expiry date, which unfortunately is not a mitigating factor for her man obssesed (and then bored) with her. He quickly becomes a disabled person due to the woman’s cunning. Although, there is no bloodshed in this movie, there is an incredible energy that makes that one would like to experience this kind of extreme emotions …

Frustrations of modern woman find their representation in the work of artist, Kelly Reemsten. In her paintings we can see women presented from the neck to the bottom (lack of head suggests kind of macabre connotations), dressed in stylish dresses, reminding the 60′s style of television icons, June Cleaver or Donna Reed.

These women in sweet dresses, however, hold in their hands tools which are typically male: axes, saws, scissors, knives , causing that we start to wonder, “what is it? what for them those sharp tools?”. The answer is precise: they need them to break the scheme of a sweet idiot female and to show the power of woman enchanted in a delicate taffeta ruffles.

Looking at these paintings and their pastel colors resembling muffins with whipped cream, I just unconsciously begin to imagine what those women could do with their tools. There is only one thing that comes to my mind – a big bloody shambles which ends up with great red splashes on the wall just like in Jackson Pollock’s art! And, if looking at women of Reemsten you think about The Hours, movie by Stephen Daldry, the effect of their murderous actions would be rater illustrated by the scenes from The Shining: