The Harrowing Dreams of Yuko Tatsushima
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 23 июн 2021
- PLEASE READ!!! 👇
In light of the growing collection of comments in this video on a particular sensitive subject, I need to address a few things.
It is quite apparent that Yuko's art is a reflection of SA, mental health and other very sensitive subjects from the female perspective. As many of you have RIGHTFULLY pointed out. But I really need to clarify things here. For those who don't know, this video was one of my very first on this channel and my researching skills back then were amateur to say the least. I made the mistake of addressing only my own personal perspectives and experiences with her art, due to not really knowing how to properly look for viable sources of info. (Not speaking Japanese or knowing how to properly translate things was also a huge obstacle at the time for me). Also, arguably the biggest factor and purely from a RUclipsr's perspective, I did not want to bombastically address SA, suicide etc. without actually confirming it with the artist or breaking the already very strict community guidelines that creators have to stick to. In fact, I was nervous the video would be taken down, I guess you could I say I was "playing it safe".
But sadly as a result, this video has proven almost to be a complete injustice to her very important work. But please understand, I was not for one second trying to purposefully ignore or deny what is very clearly and obviously presented in her art. I would still absolutely love the opportunity to interview her if possible for a follow up video. Most of all , I sincerely hope she is safe and well.
But for now, please keep the discussions going and please continue to correct me where I'm wrong, because I want to keep this video as educational as possible. And at least bring some exposure to her hard work.
All I can say is I deeply apologise, profusely, to anyone who I may have offended or who thinks that I genuinely am insensitive or dismissive to the themes highlighted by Yuko's imagery. It was not my intention to give off that impression at all.
-
Original Introduction:
I want to share with you today one of the mysterious artists that I’ve ever come across, Yuko Tatsushima. Little to no information at all can be found on her, no social media accounts, no interviews, everything about her seems to be shrouded in obscurity. Only an obscure website with a short biography I have managed to dig up on her so far. Her paintings however, can be found in abundance on many online forums and blogging websites. Her work is a one of the darkest art rabbit holes of which I must warm many viewers not to delve into late at night. In fact this video is a collection of 5 of her paintings that I've found have really stuck in head the most. In a sense I’m about to bring the rabbit hole directly to you today. So I must give another quick warning to more sensitive viewers, that some of this work may be too uncomfortable and disturbing, so please discontinue to watch or do so with care.
With that now said, welcome to another video! Today we will be observing the harrowing dreams of Yuko Tatsushima.
-
Yuko's Website: undergroundfortress.web.fc2.com/
-
Submit your art or say hi:
Email - blinddweller@gmail.com
Instagram - / blinddweller
Discord - / discord
Patreon - / blinddweller
![TRASH or PASS! Eminem ( Houdini ) [REACTION!!!]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/cB1WrZcMwMc/mqdefault.jpg)
“Art is meant to disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed”
Spot on comment I guess... You caught me!!
Guilty!!!
I often get, also considering weird and dark animations, a warm, weird, soft and humbling feeling inside ❤
I dont think you are disturbed@@user-uv5xn8dr1g
Amen.
The way she paints just looks so angry. It’s like she’s screaming at someone, “look at what you did to me!” It makes me feel more sad than scared.
I see torment more than anger. I wonder if she has schizophrenia, I recognize a lot of themes from my own. Might not be, pain is a very personal experience and unique to all.
MK-Ultra
Same. I used to draw like this like a form of therapy. Was kind of calling for help and putting out of me.
We can't say anything about her actual feelings, but dang do these paintings really give off a "restless spirit" kind of vibe
I get this feeling too. That last painting, he failed to mention that her dress is ripped revealing her underwear. The look of accusation and horror mixed with the death of "courage and bravery" makes me feel like she has been violently assaulted before. I really hope I'm wrong.
As a japanese, most of these paintings cover serious problems in japanese society. The normalization of sexual assault, the blatant sexism, the suicide rates, Tatsushima is definitely a big inspiration to me because it's so hard and scary to point out the problems in Japan, because everyone is forced to be the same. She's amazing. You've earned a new subscriber.
It's just laughable that in 2020s the comment section all be like victimizing so hard "Oh women are suffering from social norm and Japan is such a bad country" while in the early 2010s when those paintings first gained their popularity on the internet the cult followers had totally different interpretations.
@@faciorpensword6965 what is even ur point here bro
@@faciorpensword6965 Thus, showing how long it took for people to realize and acknowledge the constant pressing issues of a society, where it's better not to scream at risk of standing out, than "disturbing the harmony" and calling out for help. It's laughable how men, especially foreign men, try to down play or whine about another country's struggles, instead of seeing things for what they are. If you know nothing about our Japanese culture, then please don't bother commenting.
@@chillfactory9000 Seriously, it's as if he's trying to deny the struggles women go through.
You're really out here trying to devalue the interpretation of someone who is Japanese+has lived in Japan bc "heehoo victim complex"? you're one stupid motherfucker
“Tasushima is a painter, puppet artist, and performer. She is a graduate of Joshibi University of Art and Design, and her art is intended to be a protest against sexual offenses, as well as expressing her hardships after the loss of her mother; which soon after the death of her mother, Tasushima was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. She has stated that the majority of her works are self-portraits, and that many of them are about atomic bombing.”
That makes a lot of sense. I think her works are very beautiful.
The atomic bombing put an end to the Japanese's sexual offenses. Good job, nukes.
@@yukiandkanamekuran There's definitely a lot of catharsis in this work.
No wonder it felt so relatable. I was sexually assaulted, and I also have BPD. Hm.
I wondered why I looked at her art and thought she might've BPD, I'm saying that as someone diagnosed, I can't explain, but I knew.
The third painting, Red Laugh, doesn't seem bad or malevolent or something to be feared to me. She's crying. Stuck in that smile she held for so long, wishing and praying and dreaming to let go of it. Her eyes aren't melting, to me, they've cried for so long they simply disappeared. They were wished away, to stop crying, to stop smiling. But, deep down, I think she's afraid, too. Maybe of the smile she's kept for so long, or perhaps at us, staring back at her. But she isn't scary. She isn't bad. She's scared.
Yes, exactly!! Perhaps the stitches in her neck signify that painful facade as a costume, she's hurting and stuck in it, but can't get out.
To be honest, i find the painting comforing for some reason. After i finished this vid i googled it and stare a it for 5 or 7 minutes....
Agreed. For how dark most of her work is, that one is bright and colorful in comparison. Her hair is beautiful and vibrant. Her smile evokes pain, but also hope
this goes along pretty well with some of the other comments suggesting her artwork might be a manifestation of the feelings that go along with CSA, eating disorders, and body dysmorphia
When I looked at the image from afar, I could see the fear in her eyes too
As a woman, I feel a lot of distinctly feminine emotions and experiences conveyed in these paintings. I hope she’s doing well wherever she is.
She lives in Japan where a lot of women stay in gender roles and don’t question it or don’t have an outlet to show their frustrations well that’s Japanese society where you have to constantly hide how you feel about things and not go against society norms
I agree. I don't feel fear at all, most of these paintings are really sad. I feel like her paintings are talking about her personal issue, as a Japanese woman. I felt like she might have lost a child, there's an abortion of some sort or she herself is unmarried because she's "too old" in Japanese standard. There's also element of self harm, depression, abusive relationship (?) and returning to being a child. The red dress girl seems to be representing herself. She seems to be placing an importance to her fragile or broken heart, and protecting it naively. Eyes are probably representing her "empty" feelings and her sadness.
@@horrorpill i definetly see sadness and pain in them like you. when i see these paintings i feel sad and despair, rather than being scared of the figures. especially “I Don’t Want to be a Wife Anymore” has an almost relatable sadness to me as a trans woman (i don’t think the figure in the painting is transgender though) trying desperately to be read as a girl and succumbing to archaic and hurtful gender roles in this process, even though transness feels like it should be more defiant of gender. just my own odd connections
@@Alice-gr1kb yeah almost like the grinning in the painting was a facade to “just smile” and play a role without any complaints. And the red is a very bold color
Japan is a great place to visit, but a terrible place to live. I love the things that come from Japan such as anime to STAX electrostatic headphones. Sexual assault is such a terrible thing to go through. I had a friend who was abused so badly they just were a void of what they once were. I was assaulted as well but I have other things to deal with. Japan will convict someone as soon as you get arrested but sexual assault is not reported. The complete lack of mental health awareness makes people unable to get treatments they need. Nobody cares though because haha cute things and cool toilets.
i believe the “white prison” painting is a strong metaphor for sexual assault and the loss of innocence. the woman’s dress is ripped open at the chest, but her arms are at her sides, unmoving. the dress also seems small for the woman, like she’s wearing a kid’s dress. what looks like underwear is pulled down to her knees and, once again, her arms stay where they are, not bothering to fix what’s been done to her. i believe this painting shows the very moments after a child is raped, the confusion and knowledge that what just happened is intense and grotesquely wrong, but still being forced to grow and toughen up in a matter of seconds even. her expression is dead and wasted, drained of every thought and emotions. behind her, there are endless amounts of flowers, a worldwide symbol of innocence. but at the bottom of the painting, where her legs are, there are none. she has lost her innocence. her childhood. that’s what i think the true meaning of this painting is.
You just perfectly described what I thought. I posted a comment before reading this and realized you said it first lol.
she also resembles a ball jointed doll (BJD) which are typically depicted as soft and pure. They’re also fairly popular in japan for this reason. For me as a victim it feels like someone viewed her as nothing more than a toy and robbed her of said purity
Yeah I agree you totally read my mind, looking at this painting form first glance just screamed sexual assault to me, the emotions really show through her paintings
Also eyes rolled back expression might refer to ahegao thing
I feel like the last painting continues with this. I think that the little girl with the red dress signifies the aftermath of rape, and holding on the the praying mantis means that she's trying to hold onto being brave and carry on with her life. Although the mantis being dead, could represent how hard it is to do that.
One interesting thing I've noticed is that men mostly feel uncomfortable and disturbed about her paintings, but women are empathetic, as if they identify with them. Little details like the bloodied groin, slashed dress, underwear pulled down, smiling through pain, immediately clicked through the minds of women because they get it. Every woman has been through some form of sexual harassment where they've been helpless and vulnerable. So they don't feel scared, they feel pity and rage.
I'm a girl but I'm absolutely terrified by these 💀 but after reading some comments about the meaning, the horror died down but it's still there
Wow
We get it, we're idiots.
@@sourwatermelon the same goes for me
@@thegnarledpirate9198 not really idiots, im sure the comments intention was to state that women can relate with the paintings and artists intentions more then men because her paintings are supposed to show womens struggles
I wish I could watch Yuko paint. I would love to see just HOW she gets this unique texture. I can't really wrap my head around it.
i've done a technique called stitching(i think??) which is when you scratch at the drawing with a toothpick but as far as I know it only works with pastels, however it might work when the paint is dried and the layer is thick.
This artist must be a huge fan of Edvard Munsch. The influence is palpable at every level, from the subjects to the compositions all the way down to each individual brush stroke.
I'm thinking some kind of colored scratch board that she made herself, perhaps wax. For background, with textured scratching tool. Just a thought.
@@phroggie9715 I've never used this technique, but I could see it having a similar effect if working with thick layers of oil paint as well, since it keeps its texture pretty well. I wonder what medium she uses?
to me it looks akin to when you draw with oil pastels, and then scratch it off with a blade
I feel like mostly men feel terrified of her artwork but women often find it comforting or interesting and they might even be able to relate to the scenes.
Yes, or just sad.. it's so interesting to me tho how the author of this video didn't at all pick up the imo obvious implications behind most of these and every woman in the comment has
although i feel sad, im still scared of her artworks cuz id get random images of her arts in my head and i dont want that
@@shadowdroid776 really? I don't... And a lot of women have said their not.
@@shadowdroid776 i think some are scary to everyone, people are naturally scarred of eyes showing all the white, it’s literally instinct in our brains. But others that don’t have the ingrained fear stuff, can be comforting to the people who understand them, and those people are usually women.
As a girl, most of these works scare me, especially the "I cannot be a bride anymore". However, I feel a sense of interest and empathy in these paintings. It's natural to feel scared while looking at these paintings, I think that's one of the purposes.
I saw this and immediately saw female horror. The horror of being a wife, a mom. Of having your entire identity revolve around being someone's something. And being stripped of what makes you, you in the process. It's a unique type of horror that captures what something like Silent Hill 3 managed to capture as wel. It's funny how this made me think of Hereditary too, but just a different scene *spoiler alert!* The one where the mom says she never wanted to be a mother. I feel like these paintings have the same energy.
That's what I thought too. I was in a marriage, my ex husband was abusive, and one day I looked at marks on myself and literally said "I can't be a wife anymore". I thought I was looking at myself, I could have painted this. The funeral picture with the flowers... that reminds me of bullying with the schoolyard bully tormentor holding a rose of betrayal, wide eyed, like, "i can't believe my words actually made this girl commit suicide".
blah blah blah - this particular meme of "I am a poor oppressed girl" - its getting a bit boring - Why dont you go & live in a lesbian commune with no men to oppress you or think about ? Poor you ! Cant you shoehorn BLM into the conversation somewhere ??
@@irw4350 facts!!!!!😂😂😂
@@irw4350 what a very well adjusted thing of you to say
@@irw4350 typical feminist crying over being sexual abused by men and become lesbian. no need to ask, maybe she's already did lol
The Japanese wikipedia page for says that she apparently did an interview with a magazine before. She's been a victim of sexual assault and stalking, and the first piece 'I Can't Be a Wife Anymore' was made in protest of sexual violence. It worsened her mental health, and she says she was diagnosed with BPD. A lot of her works also has to do with the victims of the nuclear bombings, which I think is another explanation for the grotesqueness of the figures in her works.
Just to clarify, doing the painting worsened her mental health, the sexual violence or doing the interview?.... Cause I can see all 3 but I wasn't sure which exactly you were referring to
Red Laugh doesn’t strike me as sinister. She is crying for help. She’s cracking under the pressure of some pain she’s feeling.
The female Mantis also kills her mate after mating. This could be her wanting to regain her sexual freedom and power back.
that’s exactly how i felt
Exactly, her smile feels desperate :( like she's asking for help even being helpless
Omfg your pfp scared the shit outta me. The whole video isn’t as scary as your photo😢😢
@@hinatahyuga8439 thank you
These are the paintings of a deeply traumatized person.
There are a lot of paintings with damage to the groin area. Blood flowing out in one of the paintings in a video clip, and what appears to be red rather than any flesh tone that was being used in tominos hell.
A symbol of bravery being held close to the chest by a young girl with insects crawling all over her.
A trend I understand for unpleasant reasons
I agree, I feel for that person, I can feel it.
I mean if it is a symbol of bravery and hope yet seems dead, that seems to implicate something else entirely..
Hope is dead in her arms. What has happened to her can never un happen. She is blind to the beauty around her, she is in her own hell.
The "damage to the groin area" might represent menstruation, and the transition from childhood innocence to adulthood.
I can feel her pain omg it’s a lot
I was molested and raped by my aunt between the ages of 5-6. My whole life became tainted by the sexual lens that was forced on me in those early years. I am a lesbian and my whole life I have spent hating myself and being repulsed by the female body and even though I am attracted to it. Sometimes, well a lot of the time, I feels as if I’m only a lesbian because of the assaults. It makes me feel sick and like something is wrong with me. Through the ages of 11-17 I only dated and had sex with men, I thought maybe if I could force myself to be attracted to anything but the female body then I would be ok. I was desperately trying to find love in a man, during this I was hurt and assaulted a lot. I’ve had men tell me “I don’t want you because you know what it feels like (sex which was mostly sexual assault)” The pain and anger has made my blood toxic. All I want is to be a child, to not feel perverse in my attraction to women. I have an amazing girlfriend and I’ve recently come out (even with everyone figuring that I was homosexual) I’m trying to undo what was done to me, I’m trying to find the innocence in my same sex attraction which is not only sexual but I can have a deeper connection with women too, I can love them fully and intimately. The pain in these paintings is something I can deeply relate to, something that feels like I’ve lived these very images. To everyone who relates to these art works, we are not just vessels to be used, we are humans with a beautiful soul. We are the beauty of life, you are the beauty of life. I love you, please love you. We are no longer prisoners to the people that have violated our bodies.
I know you made this a long time ago, but I want you to know that my heart goes out to you, and I hope that you're doing better. I hope that you might be able to find a therapist that specializes in trauma if you haven't already, that sounds like a very difficult thing to go through, and am glad that you found someone. You are so strong, and I am hoping for you to get all the healing you need.
thank you
Remember how strong you are, you can handle everything and I wish you happiness now. I also underwent CSA when I was 11-12 years old and I understand these works to the core, along with the feelings of early defilement, anger and horror.
But I do not want this trauma to determine our entire future life, we are the purest and most beautiful souls, despite the circumstances that we had to face
Bless you. Wish you nothing but true pure happiness and fulfillment
I can't imagine the pain you are in. I was hurt by a man but the pain was the same. I’m so sorry.
Her work is very clearly about the female experience... I've never been through s/a or similar experiences but there is something about that silent female rage she represents so well that just, speaks to me
the enduring abuse experience i’d say, I wouldn’t wanna trivialize her experiences enough to say this is a entire gender’s experience…. the power & illustration in this work is very extreme. Not tryna be like “men experience this type of pain too” or that women don’t have it as bad I don’t mean that. I think these paintings stem from a very deeply personal experience & is more about expressing the emotions behind them instead of having a set message, I don’t think every woman is gonna experience this type of anguish.
& I’m sure it’s comforting to her that it can be related to but I don’t think she created these paintings with that intention
@@pinklsd4655 98 % of women get sexually harassed by men .
@@pinklsd4655 yeah these pieces seem more reserved and personal and centered around HER PERSONALLY
@@pinklsd4655 true, I feel like people are being too pretentious. It's not possible to experience what the artist felt while creating these. If that were the case, then most women would create masterpieces. We're all different and v can move on and not always feel rage. It's possible to heal. To always hold on to the horrible experiences of the past is like a recipe for a miserable life. I'm saying this as someone who had to experience a lot of horrendous outrageous stuff that's TMI to put out online.
Hi there. I lived in Japan for 10 years. You seem to be missing some context for some of these works, which is cultural... First off, Buddhist funerals cover the deceased person in flowers. Everyone walks up to the body and places a flower on the corpse. That's part of the funeral rites in Buddhism. The wide-eye'd woman is holding up the rose with the intent to place it on the corpse and the flowers are not decoration. They're just part of the funeral scene. The hands are likely those of the people who previously placed flowers. There isn't much in the way of 'undertaking' to do... Buddhist funerals do not typically embalm or prepare the bodies. Monks wash the bodies and dress them and they are laid out in a natural state. The flowers likely arose as part of the ritual to cover the smell of a dead body.
Secondly, the woman you say has a mannequin arm is a A BJD... a Ball Jointed Doll. Ball Jointed Dolls are really popular in Japan. They have a whole subculture around them. Real women even buy stockins and nylon shirts to wear over their arms and legs that have ball jointed doll joints painted on the stockings, in order to appear to be a Ball Jointed Doll. They are typically known for being very cute and fun. To make a horrific looking Ball Jointed Doll is a contrast, which may be portraying stereotypical femininity as horrific.
Thank you for the BJD explanation. As a collector of them, I was just about to type it.
Very good counter analysis. I like to consider all contexts before jumping to any conclusions or interpretations… and a cultural context is key here for this artist. Well done and thank you for bringing this forward.
@Agian Andagian You're either trolling, or you don't understand Buddhism. Offerings of both fruit and flowers are part of Buddhist death rituals. Buddhists (depending of course, on the type of Buddhism, as there are many) are not against killing, they are against violence (and in the case of Chinese shaolin warrior monks, they aren't even against violence, just unnecessary violence). Picking a flower is not a violent act. Picking fruit to leave as an offering is not a violent act.
@Agian Andagian I know nothing about buddhism but what you are saying definitely doesn't seem right, and considering the original commenter lives in japan, I'm going to take their word over yours
@Agian Andagian didn't you read the comment explaining it? I think there is a lot more to it then that
I think the name "I can't be a wife anymore" speaks for itself... these paintings clearly are very influenced by the trauma of abuse. Maybe It's easier to notice when you are a victim and an artist yourself
Definitely.
Maybe an abusive relationship that thr artist had in past
15:25 I think something worth mentioning is that praying mantis males are often eaten by the famales after mating. The torn dress as well as the blood sprayed on the walls and floor make me feel as if this particular painting is about becoming cruel or defensive after being violated.
good prespective
this was my exact thoughts too
Evil begets evil
To me the "red laugh" just looks like someone who has been broken and is literally crying her eyes, but the feelings are so overwhelming she is laughing like someone who is completely manic.
Her eyes are clearly sad to me.
It's pretty obvious to me the girl in the coffin is a child. As someone else mentioned, I also feel a lot of distinctly female rage and pain in her work. It's not at all creepy or terrifying to me, just very interesting.
I couldn't agree more. Upsetting sure, but not creepy.
I can relate to that female anger though, so maybe it's more frightening to those who have never felt the way the artist does?
Edit: ha! I just noticed we have the same name
It's pretty obvious that is not a child - on her side are letters and a box of Gitanes, french cigarretes.
Agreed. I actually stopped and started this video several times because I just couldn't look at the artwork. I never stopped cause it was creepy but because the energy radiating from it is so deeply unsettling and painful to me. When the first photo went up, which I had heard of but had never seen until now, almost made me want to vomit. The sheer terror in combination of overwhelming rage and fear oozing out of it was just too much for me to handle.
@@lalalalala2958 this makes so much sense bc I thought that the pictures looked more unpleasant than scary. Not in a bad way though, they're very skillfully executed!
Same!
as someone who was sexually assualted as I child, I can deeply relate to most of these works. with the knowledge that first art is called "I cant be a wife anymore" it leads me to believe these pieces are related to her trauma and personal experience.
As like others who suffered the same thing as a child, I ended up suffering from body dysmorphia and an eating disorder- which I see displayed immensely in her art. the grotesque bodies.
i thought i was the only one who noticed the eating disorder undertones....you're so right. it left me with such powerful self-hatred that i couldn't comprehend nor express it in other ways than hurting myself. when i saw her paintings i was hit with a sort of epiphany, i couldn't believe that all my pain and anger were manifested in front of my eyes through her works. it moved me so much and it made me feel understood...
i feel so sad knowing that people view her as this horror artist when she's much more than that. i wish i found her earlier
I totally agree, I found the painting of the child less scary and more like I identified with that feeling, and could relate to the emotion. It is wonderful to see that we are able to make beautiful art to help express our trauma and it made me feel emotions that are hard, but also there is strength in her art. As someone who went through abuse and childhood trauma, I connect with these paintings on an emotional level, and as an artist I love and admire her skill and ability to portray emotion.
i feel the samee
As a fellow CSA survivor, I totally agree. I feel like each of the paintings with a female subject spoke of being violated in some sexual way. They all highlight the pelvic or chest area on the bodies, exposing them. It shook me, hard.
yes I can see that
In my opinion, the woman in “red laugh” looks less evil and more pained, like her current state is something that has been done to her against her will. She seems to be crying, and her eyes look afraid and hurt. It feels almost tragic, like the horror of her form is scaring her as well as the audience.
I think the scary part is to be her
It looks like she’s lost herself and her mind, going insane from the pain she feels
11:24 in my opinion, this painting has some meaning of sexual abuse
her pants are down, her dress is unbuttoned, theres scars on her chest and her upper legs. also a doll like that. sexual abuse victims are often considered as just dolls, or toys with no feelings to the abuser
i think the last painting is actually depicting a little girl or a young woman maybe 18 or 19 who was sexually assaulted or raped based on the cut in the dress exposing her underwear. she is probably holding a mantis because she was “brave” she managed to get through that encounter, but through the expression she has i dont think she got justice and she is upset and furious with that outcome. she is clinging to the mantis as if its all she has left. also the mantis might be a sign that this was during war time, but im not really sure.
also this might be just me but i feel like in most of her paintings the viewer is somehow the cause of the pain depicted in the painting.
ps the fourth painting kind of reminds me of a particular murder case where a man murdered a woman he was attracted to and turned her into a sort of corpse doll, also had sex with it several times (hence the torn dress and scratched body. i dont remember what the case was called and i honestly cant bother to check. also the incense seems to signal towards the fact that she is dead. in japan camellias (tsubakis as they are known there) they were very popular with nobles during the edo period and among warriors and samurai they symbolized a noble death. otherwise it means love. but they arent exactly great presents for sick or injured people because of the way the flowers “behead” themselves when they die. since the woman in the picture doesnt exactly seem well you could interpret the red flowers to mean that the person/people who gave them to her wished bad things upon her. but then again the red flowers in the painting might not be camellias, just a little food for thought.
I mean her most famous painting is titled "i can't be a bride anymore" with a woman who has a distorted body and blood flowing from between her legs....
the case you’re talking about is probably Carl Tansler. He was a doctor who fell in love with his patient and when she died of tuberculoses, stole her body and mummified it :/
In bushi culture, the mantis is what is known as a "victory insect" among the samurai, and mantids, wasps, centipedes, etc. adorned their kabuto (war helmets).
The mantis is most certainly a symbol of strength or victory.
Rape from what I've been told is notoriously underreported I'm Japan, with sexual harassment also being a major issue. A step-cousin of mine worked in Japan as an English teacher told me that a large part of this issue is the fact that the police there will often make the women go back to the scene of her rape and reenact it. Which if true would be heavily traumatizing and I'd understand why women wouldn't want to report it in the first place or drop the report quickly when they realized that they were going to be forced to relive it. No one wants to be retraumatized.
I hope this isn't true or isn't common, but it also wouldn't surprise me if it was.
alot of them feel like anger and pain in relation to that type of truama i think
there’s a lot of feminine horror in these paintings, and I think they were made to make people feel uncomfortable. Mainly because this style strips female figures to their societally expected roles (dolls, sexual beings, conditional wives; ‘I can’t be a wife anymore’) and is all the more disturbing because of the haunted faces that always seem to me like a broken down woman smiling through world crushing pain whose only hint of existence is in the eyes and backgrounds erased of societally projected context. The frightening red erasure places the figure stands alone in her anguish, without true support - as any other female figures in that world would similarly be broken down and tortured and the invisible (ab*ser/r*apist/family member) male figure exemplifies the blame she placed on him.
Suffice to say, as a woman, I’m not completely horrified or terrified, since the context of the paintings isn’t at all unfamiliar and depressingly easy to understand/apply.
Yep. 100% yep.
They're more sad than scary.
I agree 100%. I never felt scared by any of her paintings, instead they gave me a weird sense of comfort.
Me neither being a male who was abused the same way by my mother and step father and the alot o the teen girls who my mother took care of in a girls home. I can feel this in a way where it's like I'm bathing in my PTSD. I relish the pain an agony so I can get stronger. Strength to all of you.
@Ventricosa The King no worries all it takes is to understand that I am all and all is me. you can and will overcome all you need to once you quit accepting all this so called bullshit societal norms that are actually fucked up.
I am brought to tears when viewing her art work, not of fear but out of understanding. These paintings are divinely feminine and picture the horror of what it means to be a woman. There is nothing sinister about her paintings, it is the raw truth and pain of womanhood
What about the picture at 1:07 ? The eye with the giant toothy grin is a little sinister I think. Is it related to the oppression of patriarchal religion since the person in the picture appears to be male you think?
Pfffft
The way I interpret the "I cannot be a wife anymore" is that its about sexual assault. As someone else explained, this culture only believes virgin women to be of marriable value. Even if taken advantage of. Judging from the red splash, near the groin, I'm guessing that resembles blood and trauma to the area. Adding the title onto this ties into that theme that connects with the culture
Actually, they found deflowered women to be marriable. I like to call it, "cultural hypocrisy. " Japanese culture is about hypocrisy like many cultures in the world.
Ooo interesting theory, I thought maybe it had to do with being unable to have babies anymore
Ohhhhh I think you're right. I understood it as "I am a wife currently and I can no longer be" but you're absolutely right. In a culture where virginity is a requirement for marriage it's a "I've been raped and can no longer be a wife"
Just came across this video, and I also viewed the painting from the perspective that the state of being a wife is unbearable. As if the figure had gone through violence and sexual assault within the marriage? I guess I understood the work as a commentary on the concept of "wife" being solely defined as property within the institution of marriage, particularly in a more openly patriarchal society.
i have to say, it definitely feels like there is a theme of female anger and frustration in these paintings
She nails these disturbing expressions.
A smile where a smile shouldn't be, is terrifying
Idk I feel like she wants to bend common social ideals for example you said “where a smile shouldn’t be scary” but at the end of the day I think it’s similar to something along the lines of “why isn’t a smile allowed to be scary “ if they can turn beauty into pain u can surely turn things that were painful into a symbol of hope and peace
This is the first time I've seen the entirety and learned the name of "I Can't Be a Wife Anymore". I've only ever seen her face and neck in the context of creepypastas and . . . Wow.
In context the entire piece changes in a tragically fitting way. Yuko painted a brutal depiction of the pain, shame and fear that a victim of sexual assault goes through. Then the internet got a hold of it and ripped away all of the context to vilify her subject and turn a victim into a monster. As so often happens to real women who go through such horrors.
you spoke a whole word there
Im so surprised someone did a video on her! I've been a fan of her paintings since the "I cannot be a wife anymore" showed up in the whole "Tominos Hell" urban legend. It scared the living shit out of me for a couple of years then I researched it and found her art. As a woman myself who deals with those same frustrations from being constantly downplayed, her art makes so much sense. Wish I could explain it to guys, but it just makes so much sense when you've been raised to see yourself as inferior. It comes out in my art aswell. Doesn't help Im bipolar too. Art is a great outlet Just finished your video on Goya and found this one, didn't even know anyone paid attention to her art!
I was equally as shocked to see so little content on her and her art on RUclips at the time! I'm considering revisiting her art again soon, there were a few things I wish I spoke more about on other works of hers.
My immediate thought is “white prison” is about rape.
I didn’t find any of these very disturbing? Maybe it’s true what they say about art disturbing the comfortable and comforting the disturbed.
I’m an artist and in art therapy too. There are a lot of difficult emotions in her paintings and I feel like she’s probably suffered some trauma in her life.
Yeah the "blood" in some painting in various areas and the exposure of clothing gives me also the idea that something bad happened to her.
Let's take a look with the girl in the red dress and the mantis. Her face seems angry,I only have the thing that she was violated and the way she has the mantis in both of her hands could mean "bravery". That means that even if she was violated,she was brave enough to get through this but her face shows that she may not have received justice to what has done to her. Poor Yuko,I just wonder what she has felt during her time,to think her paintings give such rage and sadness in it (I kinda feel it).
Or maybe it isn't Yuko but it's just her art aesthetic ig.
Could someone explain to me the metaphor of a white prison to rape? Like a prison of pale white skin or of void and nothingness?
i find her paintings really cool
Yeah a lot of her paintings do give me sa vibes. I myself am a survivor and it’s rather comforting to know that other people know the feelings of rage and sadness that I feel.
@@bennyworm4384 I'm really sorry that it happened to you. I hope you're doing well..
UPDATE: I have since learned from you amazing viewers that Yuko does in fact have a Twitter account! This completely slipped my notice as I unfortunately am not a fan of Twitter and had no account when I worked on this video. But big thanks to everyone who pointed this out!
UPDATE 2: In light of the growing collection of comments in this video on a particular sensitive subject, I need to address a few things.
It is quite apparent that Yuko's art is a reflection of SA, mental health and other very sensitive subjects from the female perspective. As many of you have RIGHTFULLY pointed out. But I really need to clarify things here. For those who don't know, this video was one of my very first on this channel and my researching skills back then were amateur to say the least. I made the mistake of addressing only my own personal perspectives and experiences with her art, due to not really knowing how to properly look for viable sources of info. (Not speaking Japanese or knowing how to properly translate things was also a huge obstacle at the time for me). Also, arguably the biggest factor and purely from a RUclipsr's perspective, I did not want to bombastically address SA, suicide etc. without actually confirming it with the artist or breaking the already very strict community guidelines that creators have to stick to. In fact, I was nervous the video would be taken down, I guess you could I say I was "playing it safe".
But sadly as a result, this video has proven almost to be a complete injustice to her very important work. But please understand, I was not for one second trying to purposefully ignore or deny what is very clearly and obviously presented in her art. I would still absolutely love the opportunity to interview her if possible for a follow up video. Most of all , I sincerely hope she is safe and well.
But for now, please keep the discussions going and please continue to correct me where I'm wrong, because I want to keep this video as educational as possible. And at least bring some exposure to her hard work.
All I can say is I deeply apologise, profusely, to anyone who I may have offended or who thinks that I genuinely am insensitive or dismissive to the themes highlighted by Yuko's imagery. It was not my intention to give off that impression at all.
She is now active under @yuyake_kohan, she says in the bio that she can't use the old account anymore. She still posts art and promotes her exhibit work. Her newer stuff is a lot less...chaotic than her old stuff, but it's still really good!
@@gamefaqsasciiart can we be sure that it's her? i really hope it is!
@@ramy701 it is
Can you give me her Twitter username?
@@catastrophe2155 yuyake_kohan
The painting "Red Laugh" actually made me feel sad rather than scared. Her expression was more like she's laughing through the pain. The melting eyes seems like tears, and the remaining eye was like pleading. Saying something like "help me". What I interpreted was that she had lost her sanity, and now maniacally smiling, but at the same time, her subconscious self was screaming help through her eye and behind the smile.
I think it's interesting that you as a man are afraid of the paintings but the women in the comments are finding an almost comfort or a relatability to the paintings it really shows that every single woman has experience sexual assault at some point in there lifes, that something so horrific is normal to us
These paintings are terrifying but they are paintings that bring the horrors of sexual assault to something that people can veiw
Before anyone says that not every woman has experienced sexual assault they have
Here are things that classify as sexual assault
Cat calling
An unwanted sexual comment
Unwanted touch
Inappropriate comments on social media
These are things that alot of people dont consider sexual assault but are
And every single woman/girl has experienced it
As a women viewing these paintings I actually feel the quite opposite of comfort. I feel a sense of fear and sadness. I think this is because I have a fear of being SAed. Over the past few years I’ve heard women be more open about their experiences with sexual assualt and how common women actually experience it. I don’t think I have ever been SAed and I really hope I never do. Over the years I’ve noticed I been more cautious of myself and protective. I don’t go out as much, I notice that I sometimes keep a distance from men, I cover myself up more, etc.. so basically what I’m trying to get is that these paintings scare me because I’m afraid that I will eventually experience it. Hope that made sense.
As a girl, I am also afraid of these paintings simply because of the natural fear that humans have of uncanny things. However I also feel a sense of interest and empathy in these paintings. I also think it is a bit rude to assume that EVERY woman has experienced some form of SA but it's sadly very common.
@@addie8080 That seems somewhat unhealthy. You can protect yourself of course, but don't isolate yourself. That's not healthy for you. I recommend talking to a therapist about this.
@@addie8080 it is a reasonable fear, and i want you to know that you are not alone in that fear. Every woman, whether they are confident and share what happened to them or not, are afraid of being sexually assaulted. We all are, just the same as any normal person is afraid of being assaulted, or robbed or anything else.
But we cannot let that change how we live. We cannot let it cause us to be afraid to dress how we like, and do things we enjoy. If you are more comfortable coving up, that’s okay, but covering up doesn’t change anything, which is why so many women have given up trying to hide from assaulters.
I think the best idea is for you to take a self defense for women class, it will give you more confidence that if something did happen you can protect yourself.
Get some personal self defense items, like pepper spray, an alarm, some kits even have a blade meant to take the assailants dna so you can report them lol.
I am afraid of men too, but we cannot let that fear control us. Sometimes i let it, and it makes me feel horrible, but its about the small steps we take.
@@hannahbg1852 of course I was just speaking from what I feel and what I saw in the comments
To me the smile one doesnt look like someone maniacally laughing...I think it's the tears and the empty eyes , but it looks like the monster / person is breaking down. That expression just seems to me to be full of pain
I also notice that @Blind Dweller says that the eye seems like it has "melted away" but if you look to the right of the head, that area is noticeably redder. So I think this work is a still shot of a suicide by gunshot, where the eye is the entry point of the bullet. Hence, the eye isn't really melted away but, rather, blown to bits. This also explains the character's face that is "full of pain", as you mentioned, Anna. I think the grin and the tears are both a culmination of unbearable pain and a sign of relief. Relief that she has finally been liberated from a cruel, mortal world.
Yes, I don't see the subject as a monster or a threat, but a victim. There is pain and anguish in that face. Like someone who is so broken that they have finally snapped.
Agreed. It's like someone trying to hold it together so hard, holding her pain in so tightly that her teeth are cracking under the pressure of the smile.
It’s pretty scary to me. Especially from a distance.
its my belief that this is a woman's experience as a woman , rape, abuse, wearing a mask to cover abuse,miscarriage, none of these are maniacal , they are all hiding pain.
These are images of horror. Of experienced horror. Theyre expressions of femininity, innocence, sexual abuse, and death. Theyre expressions of Japanese society and misogyny, the mourning is not just external, but internal. The themes of children and flowers, of innocence but also the fact that flowers are often associated with red and funeral rights, especially within Japanese culture. Objectification, discardment, and feelings of rotting are so viceral. The extended necks of some of the characters bear resemblance to someone who has hung themselves and broken their neck, thus looking "extended". The themes are of someone who feels dead, who has a feeling of inherent disconnect with everyone else, alienation. Its very interesting that you as a man found her anger to be directed at you, and honestly, its only fitting. After being targeted and spiritually, mentally, and socially murdered for no reason other than being a woman, no, likely just a little girl, she's angry. She's really angry. She's projecting outward that feeling, that feeling of the desire to inflict pain because pain was endured, the desire to regain control through harm. Youre scared of her because you don't understand her, but truly, this is just as it should be. Its one of the most complex but intense emotions surrounding abuse, that of wishing others understood, but knowing that to do so they must also have gone through it. Shes lashing out at you because you don't understand, and your lack of understanding makes you a threat to her, because in her mind, it only takes one incident of existing in the wrong place as a woman to become prey.
I do not feel the same fear you do when I look at these paintings, and I think that is because you must live as a woman to understand them. The figures to me do not feel sinister, but tortured. They were made to look so terrifying by the world around them and they convey indescribable anguish.
It's difficult to say whether she is a victim or trying to speak for them. Many horror writers in Japan like Ito didn't come from any abuse and his work scares the hell out of me
judging from her private and intimate social presence and her powerful art, i would say she is a deeply depressed and wounded person. junji ito and yuko tatsushima are in two different realms, i wouldn't compare their works as they both try to express drastically different subjects
I wouldn't compare Ito and Tatsushima. Ito's horrors are more surrealist compared to Tatsushima's, which seems to be pretty specific in themes of female rage.
Probably just a normal woman, with maybe a bit of trauma, just like any other human.
Considering how personal her work is, I disagree
Ito’s work pales in comparison in my opinion. Only two of his works got under my skin, and it was hardly because they were genuinely scary- it was more so just the creativity and seemingly very original ideas behind the stories. But they always have a sort of twist ending that ends up being really unsatisfying to me. These images are deeply unsettling, they are reminiscent to me of someone who has been abused or traumatized. They are incredible, to put it simply.
something to note about smiles: in other species of apes like chimps and gorillas, it's a threat display, basically saying 'i have teeth and i'm not afraid to use them.' in humans, smiles can have a myriad of meanings, some of which are dependent on context.
so, it's no wonder you might feel threatened sometimes when seeing a smile: monke brain no likey smiles
this reminds me of the meme video of the orangutan smirking benevolently with NO teeth. people joked about it, but i was curious on what that would mean
It's more on a discordance between seeing a person you don't know smiling at you, which is usually a sign of greeting and submissive open behavior. Added to that the very "uncanny valley" look of the image.
Human smiling and primate smiling is very much socially developed, not something carried over by a "monke brain". The way they interpret smiles is not carried over to humans. Human babies develop smile reflexes at 1 month and social smiling at 2 months and that shows how our brain processes smiling differently.
@@itsgonnabeanaurfromme really? i thought we, being apes, would be kind of instinctually hard-wired to low-key view smiles as a threat because we're still apes, just smart apes. like...it's a weird society/instinct disconnect
I think it is time we stop this "teeth-smiling-as-a-threat" NONSENSE.
Animals are not idiots, they read the whole body language, not just the teeth. You can approach any person or animal (ape or dog) showing your teeth in a smile, and they will understand you are just smiling. Cuz the rest of your body language and attitude support that.
But approach them with an aggressive attitude, even with no teeth, and they will understand that too.
Yuko's paintings may be terrifying or disturbing from a normal person's standpoint, but an artist views her paintings in a different light. They're all intricately detailed and surreal. They all showcase melancholic or beautifully devastating narratives.
"The Red Laugh" caught me off guard. I had to stop the video because I couldn't stop crying. I've felt that expression on my own face before. To me it doesn't come as creepy but as a portrayal of intense and forcibly silent suffering. Her tear filled eyes, manic smile, the stitches on her neck alluding to vocal cords having been removed. She's in so much pain and physically cannot express it but it's still pouring out of her.
i was sexually assaulted at a very young age. i find these paintings incredibly cathartic
i don't really know what to say but I would rather say anything than say nothing at all. So here goes, thank you for sharing what you've been through and are going through. I'm so grateful you found these artworks cathartic. I wish you so much healing on your journey.
@@isismoreau7775 thanks i really appreciate that it's very sweet of you. and I'm doing much better these days as well
I was reduced to tears when watching this and i cant stop watching it back to back again . It's like i dont want a denial from whatever had happened to me . I hope you're doing well stranger.
Not sure if anyone else has commented about this yet, but she has a wikipedia page (in Japanese, 立島夕子) which references some interviews she's done in the past and goes into what her works are/were influenced by. I love her art though it's very harrowing... I'd love to see her work become more widely known outside of Japan.
Thanks for the Kanji.
from translating the page, it appears she has been the victim of sexual assault and potentially stalking? as an assault survivor myself i recognize the signs of it in her paintings. very sad and i hope she is recovering.
I think she explores the concept of what it means to be a "monster". Their physical deformities being the result of emotional and physical pain. When we see them, we're not scared of them per se, we're scared of the pain that they went through, and that it might happen to us too. The concept of a Monster is a tragedy. Misunderstood, hurt, and shunned by society.
It’s strange to me that you see so much malevolence in these expressions and figures. I see pure pain. The girl with the insect in particular felt like she was staring into me, trying to make me feel her own pain, to try and find something like hers in me because whatever violence she was subjected to made her feel or be alone. These paintings express something so truthful in the horrific, flayed way that only the darkest parts of us know, the most human and abject parts, that I just... when I look at them, i feel like they know the things I never tell anyone, and they say things in a way that the comfortable people close their eyes to. The figures themselves do not horrify me; what has been done to them does. The full violence.
All these paintings make me feel incredibly sad. There's so much pain and anger, and it's all from the feminine perspective. They feel disturbing and menacing because society isn't used to see women like this. Women are supposed to be "pretty and pleasing". Her art destroys the illusion of femininity, it's raw and red and disturbing, because many experiences for many women are.
Exactly what I wanted to say, but couldn’t put it into words. Thank you for saying them for me
Pay special attention to the flowers in her work, as the choices look to be deliberate. A quick disclaimer that any flower probably has a dozen different meanings around the world- I'm just going with what I know off the top of my head here.
So two examples that jumped out at me- In "White prison" orchids are not backround, but surround the girl in the torn dress. Due to some, uh, visual similarities, orchids have long been associated with female genitalia. These orchids are deep red...maybe to represent injury to those body parts, deep shame associated with them, or maybe red just fit the painting, idk.
The other one was the flower blanket covering the corpse. Lilies are a common funeral flower and often represent death, especially childhood death. When the lilies/childhood death connection clicked in my brain it made me start paying attention after that. There's more with the flowers chosen in the blanket I could get into, like certain asian cultures and the base of chrysanthemum's, but I don't want to write out a full novella here lol.
Just thought it was cool, and with the artist being so mysterious, it might be worth a try to check them out. The smaller details could help us to see what she is trying to say with each painting.
You said you don't want to write a novella in the comments section but I'd be really interested in the other menings of the flowers, i hope you share some more interpretations , it would make my day :)
@@m3l0nade thank you lol I thought I was being annoying...
I'll try to rewatch later and catch some more!
@@m3l0nade Same here!
I very intimately recognize the thighs on White Prison, (TW SH) as there are scars identical on mine from the darkest part of my life when I would cut myself. The nightgown and doll joints are both straddling the line of childish and sexual (which says a lot about how we relate the two.) Someone else said this, but the cloth either seems to be her undergarments pulled down, or gauze covering amputation. Undergarment implication are obvious, but the amputation implies that she *cannot get away.* she cannot run. She has no autonomy. She is a child. She is a doll.
"Art should disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed."
Idk if I transcribed it right but yeah... I think we all get it, don't we? Her art, his reaction and all of our comments are the PERFECT example of this quote I think.
The last painting with the mantis imagery is really getting to me, like a lot of other commenters I 100% see the references to possible SA in her works, but knowing that the mantis is a symbol of bravery actually makes me think it’s meant to represent the opposite of what you said. As someone who’s gone through trauma and abuse I think it’s very common for people like us to always hear ‘but you kept going you’re so brave’ to some form or another by people who don’t really understand what you’ve experienced. It can feel so backhandedz Given the emotional turmoil you can feel in her pieces I can only imagine she’s been through some really deplorable situations. I personally feel that’s the message in that specific detail, this girl is ragged and dirty barely holding it together, but she still holds the mantis close to her because she’s been told so many times she’s brave enough to overcome so why can’t she do it now?
Or I could just be projecting 🥰 but that’s the meaning of art isn’t it?
I hate 'you're so brave'; but I can never put my finger on quite why I hate it so much.
@@skyisclear8461 right? A lot of the time I think people just use it in the wrong context, for me it makes it feel like you chose keep overcoming trauma when in reality we have no choice but to keep going.
@@SuperFudgeproduction Yes. As if its is a heroic battle against an enemy that has come back. When they see that things are really bad, people think that I have been fine, and suddenly have been inexplicably overwhelmed again. But the struggle to keep functioning every day is the part of the iceberg they don't see. Alongside 'you're so brave' tends to come 'I don't understand, you were doing so well'.
Female mantises also eat the heads of males
"Youre so brave" has same energy as "trauma/hardship builds character/makes u stronger"
Re: White Prison: An important detail was not touched upon. The cloth covering her knees. For quite a ways into the video I took for granted that her legs were folded under. But I saw the cloth and I was assailed by two horrible implications. One, her undergarment had been pulled down or, two, the cloth is covering amputation wounds. I get the sense she's been traumatised and is slowly being rebuilt piece by piece to specifications not of her choosing.
I was thinking of this exact detail! It was a painting potentially depicting strong sexual trauma.
I was surprised this wasn’t mentioned either, it was one of the first things I noticed. Along with the background that starts off behind her, it’s very interesting and stuck out to me, looks almost like a lattice.
I could not help but to think that "white" was an allusion to "white" or sexual slavery. Even her environs are evocative of the setting probably not uncommon of some of the seedier red light districts in Japan, the areas of injury suggestive of literal wear and tear caused to areas of repeated focus by countless patrons. Of course, none of this is contrary to what James suggested.
I too wondered where the rest of her legs were.
It felt to me they had been chopped of so she couldn't run away.
Also, so she couldn't fight off her sexual-abusers by kicking them.
Access to her lady parts is easier that way too.
bruh it's very clear too. idk why he just gloss over the clear meaning being sexual assault. maybe it's bc of youtube's rules
The painting at 10:10 looks more sad, to me, than insidious or malicious. The thin white lines from her eyes look like tears, and her expression feels as if she's trying to keep herself together while forcing a fake smile. She looks in pain, to me.
her work reminds me of the stuff i use to draw when I had really bad depression through out my childhood.
people look at Yuko's work and think its creepy, but there is something beautifully haunting about her work. The fact that there is not much known about her, just adds more to the mystery of her work.
Even her other works like photography and sculptures are also disturbing but yet something beautiful and
comforting about them. its like she is telling a story through her work that shows the behavior of humans and being betrayed by the very people she thought loved her.
her artwork immediately strikes me as being about sexual abuse or assault. to me, it doesn’t seem “creepy” but rather portrays feelings of utmost despair.
I see female rage in each of these paintings. To me this is the result of being conditioned to hide our anger because it will make others uncomfortable if we express it. This is what happens to anger that goes unexpressed for too long. It’s everywhere around the female subjects, and the emptiness in their eyes is the void of humanness we are taught will result if we finally let our rage out. It’s not scary to me, it’s inspiring.
No, that's a popular misconception. Anger is actually prolonged when you "express" it. Emotions aren't substances with a pressure, they are momentary appearances in consciousness. They don't exist when they're not in mind and they don't have to be "let out".
For you to stay angry more than a couple of seconds, you need to constantly repeat certain thoughts without being aware of them.
Instead of thinking that anger is a substance which is a problem to you, anger is an alarm clock that reminds you to fight your enemies and take vengeance, etc.
@@MrCmon113 there’s actually a lot of studies about how expressing your negative emotions for the amount of time you feel you need to is the fastest way for them to fade and pushing them down doesn’t work in the long run. obviously it works for some people though, and if it does for you I’m glad
@@wogimmmm But you know you can't get angry often because it is bad for the body
Repressed rage
@@subhajitbiswas9054 It depends on how you handle it. That’s why in an ideal world everyone would know healthy ways to express their emotions.
the way she paints seems angry, like she's crying tears of frustration as she attempts to vent. It seems like someone failed her, failed to keep her safe. Someone took advantage of her. I think that it could have to do with the grooming. As someone who has been through something similar, I feel oddly connected to her art, like in an odd sense it comforts me. The childlike imagery, the smiling through the pain, being held together with staples looking like they could break at any moment, the blood on the vaginal area and the pulled down panties create this feeling in me. She seems distressed in one of the worst ways and for her I sincerely hope she is able to find some sort of relief
From the paintings shown I get the sense that the artist is depicting the rage and destruction of a woman who was sexually assaulted...stripped of all humanity.....and filled with so much anger. I am in tears looking at these paintings
As a fan of Yuko's work, I do love her chaotic work, reading the description, she has a twitter account!
do you have the link? i can't tell which one is the right one...
@@cciale the mystery continues!
I would expect the name is a pseudonym, finding out various possible meanings could reveal something more about her. Sex crimes in Japan are vastly underreported for many reasons, including victim-blaming from the time it is happening to the rest of their lives at every level. Cops who tell the victim it is her fault if she reports it, sometimes to the point where the police won't even bother to write a report. Family, friends, neighbors, casual acquaintances, complete strangers, the perpetrator - from groping to brutal rapes victims expect to be blamed by them all even if it is not voiced. She is now tainted, and her family by association as well. But she is expected to keep up appearances, to "keep smiling" like nothing happened. And Japan is able to keep its publicly reported crime rate lower. Suicide is more common than you would think.
Suicides are common on Japan indead
@@LordDany Percentage wise they have a lower rate than the US, though not by much. An argument can certainly be made for the case that they are underreported everywhere due to stigma, and culture plays a big part in that. Going by said official numbers, neither is in the top 30 highest suicide rates by country.
I'm not really sure how I feel about having learned that.
@@TrineDaely we have to count on the size of the country
But its sad that so many people feel the need to end their lives that way
@@LordDany The rate is per capita, so the size of the country matters less and puts the numbers in perspective. Japan is a place where I expect a lot of suicides are listed as other causes, and we could assume same percentage range for people who have missing for an extended period as well.
And yes, it is disheartening that so many people feel that way for so many reasons, but I understand it, too.
What i find ironic and angers me is the fact that if you visit her website, there's now advertisements of hentai games (in which i assume some are lolis which is so disgusting). An art made by woman that depicts SA and the harsh reality women has to face day by day, is now tainted with degenerate fetish porn, further proving her point on how we're only viewed as sex object, only used for pleasure. Btw sorry if my English is broken, it's not my first language!!
The world is spiraling in darkness, Jesus is our only hope and savior ✝️ repent and believe the gospel.
#5 the rip in her dress, the dead mantis, the darkness in the face…all these things lead me to believe this is her right after a traumatic incident.
wait thats a rip and its her leg all this time ive thought it was a fish head
To be honest I cried multiple times during this video. These paintings represent how I’ve felt for years.
I can relate
Looking again at "I can't be a wife anymore", a painting that once felt me with such uneasiness, when I saw the full picture, and knew that it probably depicted a victim of sexual assault, it fills me with such a strong feeling that I feel like crying every time I look at it now, the rage, the deep shame is now deafening when I see it.
Omg, I hope you find peace🙏
for me, some of the paintings are reminiscent of how I viewed myself at my worst with body dysmorphia. melting and wrong a monster.
I felt the same way. I've always been drawn to her art for these reasons
i like that despite not sharing the (feminine) perspective that yuko’s works speak to, you still gave it a shot to talk about her works. talking about art will always spark deeper conversations and introspection. it’s good that you can enjoy an artist’s works and have your own take on it. i believe that this was tone deaf in a lot of parts though and didn’t give the heavy emotions yuko is clearly expressing in her works any justice. from the moment i saw her first work that you flashed on screen, i immediately felt all of her rage, sadness, helplessness, it’s like i could hear her speaking. the rest of her works had the same effect on me. i wasn’t terrified at all, i even felt a deep anguish. i was angry with her. i think that has something to do with how yuko’s works are all about the feminine experience so it’s unsurprising that you as a man would not pick up on it. it just goes to show you still have room for improvement and more research may help you in the future. i hope you do explore more works by female artists! it may help give you more perspective and it may also just be a generally enjoyable experience learning more about the experiences of women through art. :)
Wow she captures the struggles of women through her art brilliantly. Some people would find it scary but then isn't reality often very terrifying, the truth is not pretty. And seeing her art brings a sense of realism albeit the bizareness. I think she's doing something we can't put into words
A really great video my only quarrel is that the background volume was a lil louder than your dialogue audio other than that a really great video essay. I look forward to see you grow as a creator !
Ahh that might be cos of the new headphones I got recently! Still getting used to them, so maybe I was not quite as on it with the audio mixing this time round, will definitely pay closer attention next time
@@BlindDweller overall still a killer presentation, i look forward to your next video!
@@BlindDweller What headphones do you have, if I might ask?
if it helps, it looks like the autocaps are accurate :)
Correction: monologue
I don't see much people commenting on the funeral painting, so here I go.
I think we all agree that this paintings are about SA, and with that context, I think the funeral one is that of staring at the consequences of an inhuman event. The reactions to death are varied, there is the shock, the crying, but this was not death by illness or accident. I believe the girl in the coffin was murdered and assaulted in a gruesome manner. The four girls react to death but the one at the left is to me the only one that grasps the horror of what happened, and the hipocrite nature of the funeral. There is flowers over a body, beautiful objects over a crime scene, a symbolic gesture that will not bring justice, the one who did this will not suffer consequence, statistically in Japan most sexually assault cases are not even reported. The girl at the left is not petrified, she is impotent, she has every desire of doing something about what happened but knows that efforts will come to nothing. She is left with extreme anger, while she griefs, she can't put the flower over the body, because she knows is a shallow action, she knows that she did not leave in peace, but was ripped apart from life pice by pice until her body gave up. She's staring at the abyss, and she's angry that the abyss is on the face of someone she loves. I understand her perfectly, and I think the families and friends of people who have suffered, or died from sexual assault will too.
i first saw "i cant be a wife anymore" when it was used along with the tominos hell poem like you mentioned. it always terrified me, especially because i was really scared of curses as a kid and believed most of them. its still very unsettling now, but now after knowing the context i can view it in another way. her work is so captivating and terrifying but its amazing how such uncomfortable emotions can be portrayed in art. the face of the first painting has stuck with me ever since i first saw it, not only because of the poem but just because of how much it terrfied me, but now im glad? in the sense that i can appreciate the emotion that went into it.
Idk if anyones has mentioned it yet, but I feel as though the terrified looked by so many of the figures is caused by us, the viewer. Specifically the fifth painting, it’s as if she’s clutching the mantis for courage as she approaches us. The fear in her eyes is not to induce fear into us, but a reflection of the fear we instill in her.
I love it how you can really tell how harsh the artist was in her works. The strokes are just strong, not the typical hatching techniques that would usually taper out. The stroke look like they were drawn with force and intended to look that way, its like you can feel the anger from it.
Straight up fever dreams. I like this chaotic disturbing art style.
She really needs to drop a tutorial on her techniques cause her art is just so gorgeous
I dont think she worries about Tutorials, she is a woman giving us a message about What happen to women in the society, the world we live in.
When i first saw her art as a child i was terrified, because i didn't understand their meaning. Now that I'm older, i just want to cry for her. The paintings are not scary to me but rather terribly depressing.
He says "hollow, white eyes" but then shows a close-up of her face where there are clear irises. Her eyes are rolling back, irises skyward, they're not hollow.
There is a comon trend in these paintings, that being some kind of injury to the lower half, the last young girl being an example; it looks like her dress has been ripped open and now exposes her underwear.
As someone who has experienced sexual trauma, these paintings speak to that viseral part of my childhood.
While deeply upsetting to see, these paintings calm me as well, seeing such violent expressions of those feelings being shown almost feels like a mirror of the soul as it were.
I also believe a lot of these paintings are directed at the viewer, you are on one end, the person who harmed them. But you are also these portraits, these people, as if saying 'look at me, look at what you did, you made me feel this way'. Linking two sides of a trauma together, knotting them together so that neither can leave without scars.
From the 5 articles of Yuko's work you have shown in this video my heart is crying for this poor woman. A mantis can also be a symbol of a predator + ripped and pulled down clothing + the title of the first painting. I think that she was in an extremely more than toxic relationship with her husband. Perhaps she felt more like a thing or possession rather than a wife or even a person in general. This made me want to cry.
would you be quiet
@@Hellstrom1939 I'm just saying what I see, that is we were told to do. If you see something different then that's okay. My interpretation isn't the only one. I was simply sharing my feelings and ideas and the mantis idea is what I have gathered from my own research so it isn't like I'm grasping at straws here just to fill the comment section with crap and to be dramatic. This was my genuine reaction by the end of the video and that's after rewinding and pausing after each of the paintings were shown as anyone who appreciates art should. If I was seeing these at a gallery or a museum I could explain in full detail and deep sincerity what my interpretation is but on RUclips I had to simplify and censor so my comment doesn't get mistook for something malicious by their computer brain. Who is anyone to try and silence another for nothing more then having an interpretation for something as subjective as art that is different from their own. I'm not out to make everything about adult activities, this is just what I saw.
I looked at this painting as a sexual assault on a little girl. Sunflowers are a common theme in Japanese kindergartens and i think the painting shows how a little girl's innocence and personhood was taken away from her in the most disgusting way possible. These paintings are just filling me with rage and frustrations. The fact that Japanese is so advanced in technology but still fails to treat the women in their country as human beings makes me lose all respect for them.
@@Hellstrom1939 u a bot?
id kill to know more about her. there’s so much eeriness and disturbing sexual imagery in her paintings. i gotta wonder if her art is an expression of a harrowing traumatic life, or if its a junji ito type situation and she’s just an otherwise totally unassuming person with a particularly amazing talent for creating horror.
She said in an Japanese interview that she had suffered sexual assault and stalking.
15:20 'I have agreed to abide to this culture I was born into. In order to survive. In order to keep my sanity. But I am not, I AM NOT part of it. This culture of ours has a façade of beauty, of order, but that is not the whole story. Its core is void. I still have my beauty, my desire; I was touched, but it was cold - I carry no guilt of it, nor pleasure. Nevertheless, I am, or, better, I believe to look, beautiful and feminine yet. Through my art, I intend to balance, at least within myself, what was asked from myself by the society, and what is my true inner self. This culture of ours has a façade of beauty, of order, but that is not the whole story. It is stained, all of it.'
Is this quote from you just curious if you know who it’s from
@@cutenesskenziesky5272 Yes, I've elaborated these lines from what I've felt being in contact with the artist's work. It's an original text. Thank you.
These paintings would work really well on the walls in a house for a horror game. I could see these adding a further sense of unease while exploring a Silent Hill game or something.
Funny enough that's how I first saw this image, as a painting in a horror game that pewdiepie was playing years ago
@@deekay6474 what game was it?
When I stepped back to look at the 3rd painting, I actually felt pity or sadness instead of fear. It appeared more like she was modifying various aspects of her body possibly to please someone but it didn't pan out as she hoped.
freal, so much art attached to random creepypasta stories go uncredited and it's so sad. Thank you for shedding light on the true source of this art piece and the artist's other work
In the painting "Red Laugh", I actually got a different sense if it. To me, I felt a feeling of pity for the figure. It was almost as if the figure had experienced intense suffering and was trying to "laugh through the pain." Almost like it was desperately wanting some sort of approval or validation from the viewer.
What's unnerving for me is that it gives you a sense of dread from the fact that it makes you feel like a bystander, like you want to help and can't do anything... but look.
@@vkyal5810 I definitely felt that.
Soo unsettling yet it generates so much curiosity at the same time. Almost all of the paintings you showed did make me feel disturbed but also, the longer I looked, I couldn't help but just see the horror of pain, especially the female pain. It seemed to show how pain just kind of turns you into a tormented vessel of a monster, like a parasite from which you want to escape.
That´s kind of what I perceived, but feel free to agree or disagree with me!
As per my interpretations, the one thing common in these paintings is a feeling of acceptance. As in, the last stage of unbearable grief where you've tried everything to turn things around but nothing would change and its not in your control anymore, so you simply accept things as they are. There's a relief in knowing you did what you could and everything is beyond you now, so you don't have to hustle anymore, you don't have to fight anymore. You just stand in a corner and watch the deluge ruin everything. That is why the twistedly smiling faces, like, you're happy you don't have to fight anymore so you're smiling,but at what cost? Its a combination of the horror of watching things fall to ruin and the tragic relief of acceptance of that horror. The paintings are beautiful!
Exactly! You articulated this perfectly.
6:22 really looks as if it was the funeral of the child in her, as in, the end of her childhood, that maybe someone took from her
The three women on the second painting remind me of the Three Mothers from Thomas de Quincey's essay "Levana and our Ladies of Sorrow": The Mother of Sighs, the Mother of Tears, and the Mother of Darkness.
I feel that, in the fifth painting, the praying mantis may symbolize a display of courage while viewing such a grizzly, harrowing image, or maybe even a beacon of hope and strength being offered by the artist to the viewer. To me, I don't think the mantis is dead. It looks as though she's holding the mantis like how a mother would hold their baby. I believe it is an allegory to how Tatsushima-Sama feels about her art; the imagery of holding a child, in this case almost lovingly, suggests to me that courage is an extremely important theme in her art, as though the idea of courage in the context of not just this work but all her work is similar in importance to a baby; considering how personal, horrific, and symbolic her subject matter and imagery can be, it must take a lot of courage from Tatsushima-Sama to share her work with the world.
Thank you for sharing this. I absolutely love Tatsushima-Sama's work. I'll be spending my evening exploring more.
I may not have experienced r-word or domestic abu$e or other specific agonies, but I can so clearly see that most of these drawings and the feelings they’re supposed to evoke aren’t terrifying to people who have been hurt so badly in some way, in fact I’ve drawn something so similar to this just because I’m so mentally scarred. If you’re afraid of it then you don’t understand it and that’s the true horror of her art, if you know that pain you can see it, if you don’t you fear it.
Been watching this video more than once and for some reason _Ikueda Coffin_ always hits me in the worst way because I've experienced the death of my little sister. The expressions of the three mourners are all me.
I see her paintings as depictive of rage of and experiences a lot of women went through/can relate to. Especially the first one, seems like it speaks about sexual assault. As such, she is seen damaged by society and therefore unfit for marriage.
women aren't alone in being violated to a state of ruin by the forces running amok in this demented modernity...I mean to say I think that you might appreciate your sympathy with that harrowing expression even more by seeing it not as a general 'women's pain' but as a very private and very personal pain...that you may also feel...?
btw your handle is my favorite ever. Who doesn't go goblin, will be our meat 👺
@@Lu11abi Women aren't alone, but her art features female rage and sorrow, that can be seen in some other artists with similar thematics. Something like Suzzan Blacc, for example (check her out, but be aware Blacc's art is more graphic). The desire to be perfect, being tainted, expectations... Tl dr it's a personal struggle that's experienced by many.
And thanks, I forgot why I picked this name, but I like it 😁
The first one to me seemed a lot more like a miscarriage since a lot of Japanese women find it as the ultimate thing to be a wife and have a family and not being able to because of miscarriages can make one feel worthless either way it’s an amazing piece of art and can form a lot of different meanings to the person viewing it
In that smiling photo, I felt like a small figurine is trying to reach her left cheek by bending out from the eye socket. A child is trying to smile, but also crying and her face is almost disappearing with the background. None of the drawings are terrifying to me, because the artist is not trying to terrify anyone she is trying to portray her scared childhood self. I want to hug each of the girls in these paintings, they're so deeply scared, probably because of SA. As a girl, I've felt this deep fear in unsafe public spaces especially the last photo is just making me cry, she is so scared and her folded hands feel like she is holding something dear to her life and wants to protect herself.
Honestly same, immediately when I saw the 3rd painting (I believe it was?), I didn't feel scared, I felt sad, she's been crying for so long that her eyes are starting to either out of her head, shes been smiling for so long that its hurting... It's hurting so bad and she just wants it to stop. All these girls deserve therapy, a hug, and some muffins
at 10:12, I personally couldn't see it as insidious or scary. *Her* left eye, particularly, has this "pleading" feeling, and it's an expression I feel that I have held before when I've felt truly backed into a wall. It just feels very sad
The painting at 9:17 ...
When you pause the video and step back, the figure not only changes expression, it does it WHILE YOU'RE LOOKING AT IT...Freaking HORRIFYING...
No fucking way am I trying that
Eclectic Sayonce, I was so unsettled, I turned off the video, and I don't scare easily.
The girl in the red dress holding the mantis is really interesting.
She looks like she's smiling. Like she knows something and that thing is haunting her, but she finds whatever she's thinking about very darkly funny in some way. Her expression is similar to the laugh people make when they're angry or sad, no real joy is present. To me its a picture of a girl thats been assaulted, she'll probably never be the same again, and she's staring foreward blankly, disassociated from the world around her. She seems like she's looking at the viewer, i believe the person thats supposed to be looking at her (us) is the one that harmed her.
I think you missed a major part of White Prison. To me it's obvious that the figures underwear is bunched around her knees, which dramatically changes the context. Even without that specific part of the image I feel there is a distinctive sexual angle in this work.
my opinion on the 11:42 painting: i personally beleive the painting is in reference to societal standards placed on women. the use of the ball joint arm shows this pressure women have to almost perform and act in a certain way. to be this certain thing in order to be accepeted. the pose adds to this inocent feeling, showing that this pressure is placed right from birth. i think this piece is meant to represent this almost never ending expectation women have, and no matter how hard they try, they feel as if they will never be enough.
Where? 19th century England?
Maybe because I’ve been through a lot of trauma but I interpret the red smile as a protector type figure to stop someone from feeling pain, like when people put on a mask to hide how they really feel, also as an artist too her colour use is very interesting, I love using colours and red and yellow are colours of danger and pain to me so it’s interesting to see so used in her paintings.