Truth Lies is the second in an ongoing series of small volumes by Tania Love Abramson designed to explore the ambiguity of language, its effects on the individual, and on societies more holistically. At its core, both politically relevant and timeless in nature.
Powerful indeed – the art & text resonate! – Keith Holyoak, Author of The Spiders Thread: Metaphor in Mind, Brain, and Poetry
Concern is Tania Love Abramson’s shrewdly crafted narrative, in photographs, poetic structure, and note, of the many nuances of concern. This is the first volume in a series tied loosely together by ambiguous words and experiences.
Simultaneously intense and vulnerable, Concern is reminiscent of the work of Jenny Holzer and Barbara Kruger. – Ian Putnam, musician and artist
This is not a zine, it is an art book. Keep it up! – Jacki Apple, multimedia artist, writer, and performance artist
Shame and the Eternal Abyss – In this uniquely captivating series of drawings, paintings, and commentary, visual artist Tania Love Abramson plumbs the depths of a chronic and debilitating psychological experience she calls the Abyss – an unfathomable chasm of desolation brought on by a profound sense of shame that materialized without obstruction after having been a victim of persistent sexual abuse as a young child. Tania Love Abramson’s art is her monument to healing, advocacy and prevention.
A powerful and moving account, visual and verbal, of the ravages of childhood abuse and of the journey of one who saw her way to a life beyond shame and the eternal abyss. Compelling art and poetry. – Elyn Saks, is the Orrin B. Evans Professor of Law, Psychology, and Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences, University of Southern California. She is a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship award recipient and the author of the award-winning autobiography The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness.
I found it so moving that you created this body of work and shared your story. – Kathe Kollwitz for Guerrilla Girls.
Spectacular, profound, visual and verbal expression of the agony of childhood sexual victimization and the lifetime of suffering it can spawn. Yet through the art, we also see transcendence. – Joan Meier, J.D., Founder and Legal Director, Domestic Violence Legal Empowerment and Appeals Project, and Professor of Clinical Law at George Washington University Law School, Washington, D.C.
Thank you so much for sharing your work and your story. I salute you for having the courage and ability to create a way to help others through your art and your talks. – Jacki Apple, multimedia artist, writer and performance artist.
A mesmerizing piece of work, this unique book allows the reader to access a very subjective account of the everlasting double penalty faced by victims of sexual abuse. It also offers, almost unbeknowingly, a powerful gendered critique of victim shaming and blaming. Last but not least, it echoes our societies’ vast abysses created by the patriarchal blindness of law. Definitely a new addition to the ideal alternative reading list of critical criminal lawyers and legal scholars. – Dr. Bérénice K. Schramm, legal philosopher, Cédim, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM)
I really like your book. – Richard Ross, photographer and professor of art at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
To read this book is to experience the struggle to breathe in a world that demands victims’ silence. But in the very moment one feels overwhelmed, the words and art put human resilience on full display. – Meg Garvin, M.A., J.D., Executive Director of the National Crime Victim Law Institute, and Clinical Professor of Law, Lewis & Clark College, Portland, Oregon
A powerful personal story of betrayal, the lasting damage it causes, and the struggle for recovery, told primarily through the author’s haunting artwork. No one can continue to look the other way when adults abuse children (or fail to protect them) after experiencing the impact through Tania Abramson’s eloquent rendition of pain. – Catherine Ross J.D., Professor of Law, George Washington University Law School, Washington, D.C.
Tania Love Abramson’s visual-verbal poem draws us in to dark places we hide from (because she learned not to hide from hers), not a pleasant path, but because she gets so far into those places we start to realize that we can move through them. The sequence of images and narration (of her history and experience, not simply of the drawings) eventually conveys progress, progression, even though without providing deliverance. The work is an arresting combination of accessibility, honesty-with-oneself, and courage-to-face. – Dr. Gregory A. Miller, Distinguished Professor and Chair, Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles
Thanks for your work in this field. – Karen Finley, performance artist, poet, musician and professor of art, NYU.
Visceral, hypnotizing, corporeal, and courageous sketches of a dark world. Her voice is clear and embodied as it reverberates from the center of a spiraling chaos of shame. Respite is in the doing. – Bianca Sapetto, performer and choreographer, formerly of Cirque de Soliel and Teatro Zinzanni
Courageous and artful self-inquiry from a woman with a mission, making the invisible world of despair and shame visible. – Dr. Bernet Elzinga, Professor of Stress-Related Psychopathology, and co-founder of the Child Abuse and Neglect minor program, Leiden University
This is a remarkable book, well-nigh unclassifiable. In it the author opens up a fresh and demanding approach to sexual violence, pouring her wealth of experience into art. It is both helpful and hopeful! – Dr. Sólveig Anna Bóasdóttir, Professor of Theology and Religious Studies, the University of Iceland
Through her eye-catching art work, Tania Abramson managed to express the impact of child sexual abuse as well as chances for reprocessing. This book goes beyond words and is an opportunity for both professionals and survivors to comprehend the dynamics of shame related to sexual abuse. – Dr. Iva Bicanic, clinical psychologist at the Sexual Violence Center at the University Medical Center Utrecht, and Head of the National Psychotrauma Center, the Netherlands
Very powerful artwork that helps others see and understand. – Dr. Lenneke Alink, Professor of Forensic Family Studies, and co-founder of the Child Abuse and Neglect minor program, Leiden University
In our culture, child sexual abuse thrives in the shadows of secrecy. This poignant, powerful, poetic expression of shame reveals an important truth: when we give voice to child sexual abuse, what other people witness is our courage. And when we are seen–truly, safely seen for the parts of ourselves that we love and the parts that hold the most pain–our shame can shift and we can see what other people see in us: bold, beautiful courage. – Kerry Naughton, Executive Director of Oregon Abuse Advocates and Survivors in Service, Portland, Oregon
When one speaks of abuse and neglect, there is a knowing, and, at the same time, a parallel silence of unspoken knowledge. Words, ideas, thoughts, and emotions are shadowed in references, allusions, body codes, and eye gestures. Tania’s art has the ability to convey the hard and the soft, the seen and the known. The art is communicating nuances within itself and to the audience. Words disappear, and, like the rain that mutates the marks, the messages are conveyed from one to another…where healing begins: from the inside out. – Ellen e Baird, Professor of English, Copper Mountain College, and Editor, Howl Art & Literature Magazine, Joshua Tree, California
Tania Love Abramson 