Exhibits

True stories of vengeance and violence are intertwined within the collaged canvas of Darja Bajagic’s Brittany Phillips as Lifelover, Susan Wright as Patricia Arquette (Stigmata). A central Susan Wright covers her mouth while gesturing how she stabbed her abusive husband 193 times while he was tied to the bed in their Houston home, claiming, "I couldn't stop stabbing him; I couldn't stop. I knew as soon as I stopped, he was going to get the knife back and he was going to kill me. I didn't want to die." 

In contrast, 2004 homicide victim Brittany Phillips’ mother sits below Wright looking up with a pensively placed hand that gestures upwards. The image was sourced from a website she created to find the still unknown killer of her daughter. Though Bajagic excludes Brittany Phillips’ presence in the photo, she leaves a floating arm once resting on the now cut-away chair. These strategic cuts flip the once casually placed arm to resemble a fist cocked back ready to strike. Arms spiral out from the center of overlapping canvases – one printed with a woman’s bloody body from album art by experimental black metal band, Lifelover. 

On the edge of the canvas a pair of 2s resemble crime scene evidence labels. A blood soaked rag might be a grisly reminder of a life lost, but the numbered labels neutralize and normalize the frequency and utterly ordinary nature of murder. The grit and complexity of this work, and others by Bajagic, steam from her refusal to accept the constraint of any responsibility to sustain a moral equilibrium, but rather to search for a truth that contains the unsavory and profane. 

publication  

Organized by Marie Heilich