Contemporary female painter Relm may appear private and mysterious on the outside, but her paintings reveal the rich, layered, flowery, sensual and surreal world of her imagination. Relm is currently based in Canada but she grew up in NYC where she also started her artistic journey. She states that the part of her influence comes from her Balkan/Bosnian background and her travels through Europe when she was a young teen. There are many Influences we can feel in Relm’s work; from the fairy tale illustration and Pre-Raphaelite femininity (in the women’s hair, flowers, myth), to pop surrealism and feminine gothic romanticism, with a touch of Klimt-like sensual ornamentation, minus the gold rigidity. Relm’s colour is pink, not gold..
Fig.1 Relm, Heart of Stone
Fig.2 Relm, Birdbath
Fig.3 Relm, Whiskey on the Rocks
Fig.4 Relm, Winter Bliss
Fig.4a Relm, Winter Bliss (detail)
Distinctly Feminine
Relm’s paintings are distinctly feminine, flowery and rose-tinted. It is as if a little girl who read fairy tales has now grown up and is encountering the world of grown-up pleasures. The little girls who were reading fairy tales such as Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty are now reading Anne Rice’s ‘Sleeping Beauty’; this is the vibe I am getting here. This is sensuality from a female point of view, just the same as Anne Rice’s ‘Sleeping Beauty’ trilogy is erotic exploration from a woman’s pen and perspective. Moreover, Relm’s paintings have quite a few characteristics that make them instantly recognisable; the soft colour palette, the flowery aesthetic with abundance of pink roses, a fairy tale touch, men who are either knights or marble statues, soft surrender bordering on submission.
There is an interplay of sensuality and innocence in Relm’s paintings. The young women in these paintings, with their rosy cheeks, pouty lips and bows in their hair, are Lolitaesque and despite their seemingly innocent faces they are indulging in activities which are all but innocent. They are bent down for doggy style in Fig.1. and Fig.2., riding their knight in shining armour in Fig.3., sucking things in Fig.4. and Fig.5, or simply pleasuring themselves, as is the case in Fig.6.
Fig.5 Relm, Enchanted
Fig.6
Fig.7
Coded Warnings
In so8 many paintings the man is a knight and he is either gently protecting the woman as seen in Fig.7. where she is sleeping on his chest in a rosy meadow, or dominating her as seen in Fig.8. where he is choking her. After all, the fairy tales were never meant to be safe. Long before they were softened for children, they were stories about blood, hunger, transformation, and desire, coded warnings and wishes passed between women. In the contemporary work of Relm, fairy tales return to their original terrain: lush, unsettling, intimate. Her paintings stage a collision between innocence and erotic knowledge, not as opposites, but as coexisting states of being. Roses bloom into flesh, roses bloom from nipples, castles pour from mouths, and women are no longer prizes at the end of quest; they are the landscapes, the seasons, the spell itself.
Fig.8 Relm, The Fruits Of My Saviour
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