oil painting

Madonna malocchio

Madonna malocchio, pt. I & pt. II. Oil on paper, 7”x10” each, 2019.

Impregnated by all that she sees in the world, she gives birth through the tear ducts of the third eye that spans her torso. Her joy is born as flesh and blood and bone, and her sorrow is salt-water that she casts into the sea. The water level keeps rising.

Today is my birthday; when my mother was the age that I am now, she was pregnant with me.

in

Taking serious liberties with the details of the Long Island Serial Killer case. Of the eleven bodies found on Gilgo Beach, one was actually male (dressed as a woman and a sex worker like the rest of the victims), but aesthetically I’d rather fill the page with curvaceous 60s babes.

I’ve been reading boatloads of case descriptions for some of the grisliest unsolved murders around (the theme for this series is unsolved deaths and disappearances where the case is bizarre enough to appear “paranormal” in nature–freak occurrences, elements of ritualistic sacrifice, alien abduction), but the important thing for me is that the story is not overwhelmed by the details of the killing itself. I can’t do anything involving children because it’s too much of an immediate shocker. Most serial killers are out of the running as well, because the story is always about the killer, and not the case itself.

The Long Island serial killer is an exception to this rule because a.) they have yet to be caught, and b.) Shannan Gilbert. When Shannan Gilbert went missing, the search to find her led to the discover of ten other remains on or near Gilgo Beach. Gilbert’s connection to the serial killings is interesting because there isn’t one–the fact that she went missing near to the site of a serial killer’s dumping ground is just a strange coincidence.

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