Maren Curtis

Lives and works in Providence, RI, USA

Artist statement

My work examines the impacts of rape on the mind, body, and imagination. My freshman year of college, I was raped only two months after arriving at school. It took me a year to tell my sister, another six months to tell my parents, another year to tell my peers, and only last week did I begin to tell my full story. I work with drawing, printmaking, fiber, and writing. My drawings are literal. They examine the warped reality I experienced when I was suffering with PTSD. I visualize my dreams, try to give voice to the most intimate parts of my experience, and make visible everything I saw that no one else could see. Whether that be handprints on my body from where I was touched, rockets and fireworks shooting towards my eyes and my brain as I try to wash dishes, dark shadows of men creeping around my room as I sleep, or binding myself to the roots of vegetables under an oppressive and phallic garden - I don’t give into the idea that these imaginations aren’t real. When I was suffering the most, I was made to feel insane - but my thoughts were so strong they couldn’t help but manifest as real images. Flashes of stories I conjured in my passing thoughts revealed themselves to me in full. The vividness makes them real to my nervous system. Drawing these horrors as reality is essential to validating the experience of fear survivors with PTSD become accustomed to. My fiber work examines time and coping. The act of embroidering forces me to meditate with imagery, to ponder the...

Artwork