My Name Is Iden | In defense of the dark arts
- Published: August 7, 2026
I am an artist. If you, dear reader, only know me through my writing, you may not have known that about me, but it’s true. In fact, most of my time and creative energy isn’t spent on words. It’s spent on images — images that tend to be, as my own artist bio politely puts it, “intense.”
It’s the sort of artwork that isn’t always what people want to see, the sort that quickens the pace of gallery patrons. There are lots of artists like me making art like this, and I would like to take a moment to speak for them and, hopefully, make the case for slowing down and engaging with this work, even if it hurts. Especially if it hurts.
Art, for me at least, is not a place for logic. Pictures are not where I share my complete thoughts and coherent arguments. My images are built from raw emotion, unfiltered feeling and shameless vulnerability. They are the memories that have no words, a look through the unshaded window of my soul.
They take a lot of effort to make, and the results can be, as my best friend has tactfully told me, “dark.”
It is an interesting experience exhibiting this work. I remember very clearly my first art fair. Two out of every three people walking by would take one look at my booth, immediately turn their heads and walk off in search of something more appetizing, searching perhaps for something with more lilies and fewer screaming mouths. That didn’t surprise me or offend me.
Flowers are beautiful. They take skill to render effectively, and such things can bring genuine joy to a person. My booth, on the other hand, was packed with pictures that dealt explicitly with addiction, trauma, self-injury, anorexia, sex, gender dysphoria, etc., and I thought, “Well, you know, maybe this stuff isn’t for everyone.”
But not all of them ran away, and the people who did stop to look stopped and stayed. They stayed and looked for a long time. They talked to me, they bought pieces from me and genuinely engaged with the work in a way that I wasn’t expecting.
It was a very gratifying experience for me, and it was that remaining third of the people, that one in three who didn’t turn away, that got me thinking more about the value of “intense” or “dark” art.
I’ve had many opportunities since that day to share my work and speak with the people who find something there to appreciate. Of course, they have their own varied and individual thoughts about the art, but it seems to come down to them all simply having seen something of themselves in the images.
That’s wonderful to hear as an artist, especially as a “dark” artist, because the need to be seen is exactly why I invest so much of myself into creating this art.
That brings me to finally addressing the other two-thirds of the people, the people who turn away. I understand well the impulse to turn from something that is frightening, but I think that those who do so are doing themselves a disservice.
If you, dear reader, are someone who finds themselves running from the shadow in search of the reassurance of the day lily, let me try to bring you to the dark side, if only for a moment.
Disturbing artwork is an offering. It is the artist reaching out to share a piece of themselves with another person, and it is a precious gift indeed. Every single one of us experiences pain, grief and loss. Every single one of us has been scared. Every single one of us has walked through shadow, but not all of us are willing to stay there, in those painful moments, for the time it takes to turn them into art.
When I look at a piece of art, I may spend five, maybe 10 minutes, with it before moving on. Ten minutes thinking about what I am seeing and what the person who created it must have been feeling.
But, as the creator, I have spent up to 200 hours with a piece. That’s dozens of hours sitting with the memory and the emotion of it. That is the gift of the dark artist: a willingness to sit with that pain and to share it so that another person may step one foot into the shadow for just a moment, see themselves there and know that they are not alone. So that they can step into the pain of their own memory, and maybe for the first time, see something beautiful there.
To be clear, I’m not disparaging anyone’s taste. I do my best not to art-shame, and I’m not expecting anyone to redecorate their home based on my musings.
I worry that this entire essay may read like a bit of branding for an artist who is seeking more attention for her work. Perhaps it is that, but call it what you want — intense, dark, frightening, grotesque — I genuinely believe that we are losing something when we turn away from the horrible in art.
We are training ourselves to turn from the pain of our fellow humans, and worse than that, we are turning away from that part of our own selves that hurts, that cries, that feels unsure or lost. That is often the very part of ourselves that needs most to be seen.
So please, my dear reader, the next time you are out in the world experiencing artwork, fight that first impulse to turn away from the art that is, as a recent viewer of my work called it, “difficult to look at.”
Instead, spend a few intense moments with the darkness. Walk into it with your arms open, because what is waiting there for you isn’t a monster. It is you — you in all your fragile humanity. The you who has been waiting a long time to be seen, to be acknowledged and embraced.
That isn’t the sort of gift you get every day, and it definitely isn’t one you should turn away from. Stay. Look. Find that lost you. Maybe offer them a flower. Hold them tightly for a few minutes and let them know that they haven’t been forgotten.
*The author is an artist and writer living in Yellow Springs. You can follow her work at http://www.mynameisiden.com
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