The art of Jane Orleman: childhood trauma and the discourse of sexual violence

ABSTRACT

Jane Orleman (American, born 1942) is an artist and a survivor of child sexual abuse. Through paintings she created during therapy, Orleman rejects the gendered and patriarchal binaries between therapeutic art and professional art, which pit the private, feminine, and intuitive against the public, masculine, and intellectual. By analysing selected artworks from Orleman that embody her child self, young woman self, and alternative self, I propose that Orleman reflects on and challenges the pathology of sexual trauma along with the discourse of sexual violence as a political statement. Therefore, I argue that her art deserves to be part of a larger, counternarrative, anti-rape and anti-incest cycle in contemporary American art.

KEYWORDS:

• Sexual violence
• trauma
• art
• therapy
• survivor

Acknowledgment

I greatly appreciate Jane Orleman’s generosity for providing thoughtful feedback for this manuscript and for giving me permission to use images of her artworks, although this piece does not do justice to her work. I also want to address that her latest artworks in the last two decades are mural-sized, spiritual works that go beyond her sexual trauma (Orleman, personal communication, 1 October 2021).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hyunji Kwon

Kwon holds a dual doctoral degree in Art Education and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from the Pennsylvania State University. Kwon’s research interests include critical pedagogy and emotion, critical multicultural and global art education, community-based art education, historical research, Indigenous decolonial aesthetics, the ethics of care, personal, historical, and cultural trauma, witnessing, embodiment, curricular resources, and emerging technologies, utilizing performative and mixed methodologies. Her work explores both local and global contexts with careful attention to the morality of researching and working with vulnerable populations. She has published numerous peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, along with many other ongoing research projects. Besides her teaching and research, she has provided art workshops for women in transitional homes and sexual violence survivors.