Home

Uncorruptable Beauty

image by johnathan darkly

Cynthia Sheppard

A woman in a red jacked and bare belly lovingly clutches a metal shell.
A slender nude woman with long brown hair begins to leave a bathtub in a flooded room.
A nude woman with an ornate necklace and fiery hair.

It is an easy thing to say that beauty is good, and ugliness is bad… to say that which is attractive is pure, and that which is repulsive is corrupt. Cynthia Sheppard understands the complexity behind these lies, and illustrates her knowledge with her stunning depictions of seemingly desirable women in apparently foreboding surroundings.

The women in Ms. Sheppard’s visions not only exist, but thrive in these adverse conditions. Their relationship to their environments are ambiguous, however. A few can be seen striking back at those contributing to — if not outright responsible for — the destruction and decay around them. Others seem to take secret pleasure in the desolation around them.

Are these figures the protectors or authors of these ruined worlds, or are these scarred landscapes merely reflections of the psychic damage they’ve sustained in their troubled lives? Cynthia offers no easy answers, but the beauty of her work is undeniable.

Written by in December of 2010. Last edited September 2014.

Related Features

Aly Fell

A woman in a loose white tunic and gold jewelry stands regally. A naked blond woman with a flight cap covers her large breasts with one arm. A green woman in a skimpy yellow top is bathed in eerie light.

Jeff Simpson

A pale nude woman with a shadowed face has a large dark bird on her shoulder. A murkily lit woman with dark, wavy hair descends further into the depths. A pale naked woman squeezes her breasts with her dagger arm drawn tight to her chest.

Gary Newman

A nude vampire woman with long blond hair wearing an open sheer nightgown, with blood smeared on her face and hands. A closeup of a bloody, grimy zombie girl in a tattered dress. A gothic woman with long red hair and a misshapen arm wearing a white corset. A naked vampire woman with with stringy blond hair opens her bloody fanged mouth. A bloody, grimy zombie girl stands menacingly in a tattered dress. A buxom woman with red hair and  a misshapen arm, wearing a white corset wielding a large knife.

Lauren K. Cannon

A partially-nude woman with dark skin wearing a bony bird headdress. A pale woman with bloody eyes with a torn, living hood. A young man sits nude in a field under a starry sky.

Jason “Stuntkid” Levesque

A translucent sea creature seductively extends her tongue. A naked blue-skinned woman plays with heir hair underwater. A chalk-pale woman with black hair, ghostly-white eyes and charcoal lips.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *