Zhenia Stepanenko

The work Scream from a Bubble Bath refers to cult horror movies, which the artist uses as a tool for exploring her own psyche and, at the same time, the social order.

Horror films that Zhenia Stepanenko interprets vary in subgenres and themes. Body horrors reveal the existential fear of inevitable death and unwanted body transformations. Monster movies are a covert, often political and social, metaphor for anxiety about the normal order being destroyed by an invasion of parasitic organisms and bodies. Slashers focus on the odious character of murderers and rapists, but by revealing the traumatic lines of their childhood and past, they show their damaged human side. Psychological and fantasy horror movies, such as Hellraiser, Jacob’s Ladder, An American Werewolf in London, delve into the themes of the multi-layered, horrifying consequences of war, post-traumatic stress disorder, survivor’s trauma etc.

Scream from a Bubble Bath also focuses on the psychoanalytical potential of horror movies. Using porcelain, which is a rather exquisite, refined material, the artist symbolically elevates the genre of horror, typically viewed as low-brow. Stepanenko transforms eerie images into metaphorical, whimsical decorative elements designed to create an atmosphere of comfort and well-being. In this way, the conflict between content and form aligns with the role that horror movies play in the artist’s path toward self-discovery: horrors have become a comfortable, controlled way of encountering her own fears and the dark side of her personality. Interest in such extreme human manifestations as cruelty, violence, and madness, often taboo according to cultural and moral norms, is unleashed via horror movies. They provoke an uninhibited analysis of both personal and social issues, free from the oppression of sudden shock.