SIREN SLUT

Siren Slut is a painterly treatise on desire and the search for fulfillment. Each painting is a form of intimacy, a sexual encounter, but also a figure of extreme emotional tension. Its source lies not only in the body but also in the gaze—one that carries with it the cultural and social temptation to judge. Siren-slut, pleasure-pain, love-jealousy—Monika Falkus’s paintings challenge these simplistic, often toxic binaries and instead offer a multidimensional, sensual, and emancipatory experience.

The exhibition title references the Madonna–whore complex as well as the notions of slut-shaming and vanilla-shaming, which describe the judgment and stigmatization—especially of women—based on their sexual behaviors and preferences. The titles of the individual works reflect a range of psychophysical states experienced by women in romantic and intimate relationships: Different, Dripping, Elevated, Healing, Loved, Remembering, Satisfied, Satisfied.