Art Appreciation Aids. Interpreting art that shocks you. Artist Statement: This piece is not about Tampax -it is about the feelings it makes you experience. These are the same feelings God experiences when we think our good works will get us into heaven. Legitimate things in themselves, can, in the wrong context become offensive, confusing and repulsive. Bloody World is the third piece in the Blood Series. It is engaged with by connecting the loose links between the elements and allowing those ideas to percolate in your mind and create new thoughts, rather than trying to find or forcing them into a solid and singular meaning. In this way it is more like a conversation, exploration or series of challenging questions to resolve over time. The shock factor pushes you to try and resolve it -unless you run from it, cancel it or block it out. The artwork Ophelia by John Everett Millais from Shakespeare's Hamlet (John Everett Millais, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons) masterfully uses the shock factor to make you think. The positive emotions evoked by Ophelia's beauty, vitality & youth and the viewer's compassion overcome the feelings of horror and grief that try to drive you away. Viewers in the Tate Gallery in London stand transfixed as they wrestle with their feelings & thoughts that their mind is fruitlessly trying to reconcile and bring back into order. Those who can, ride the wave and experience the thrill of the new emotions and thoughts. Van Gogh attempted to evoke shock and compassion for the poor through his Potato Eaters artwork. (Vincent van Gogh, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons) It didn't work because his viewers believed the poor felt no emotions while they themselves had such low sensitivity to feeling anything. Van Gogh, who was highly sensitive, changed tack and created works to awaken feeling in people. No one understood his art and he only sold one painting in his lifetime. Slowly though his art did its work until 100 years from his death a sunflower painting of his sold for a world record $40 million! Now we live in a world dominated by feeling. Perhaps the most infamous piece of shock art was Marcel Duchamp's 1917 "Fountain" -a urinal turned upside down. For good or bad it changed art and culture and for that reason is significant. In a way it is very similar to the prophets' statements referenced in Bloody World: That sometimes what is passing for right and proper needs to be challenged through something shocking and reassessed. If you want to reflect more on Bloody World you may want to read about my thought process in creating it. You can find this in the comments.

Posted by David Thorpe at 2026-04-06 04:11:03 UTC