Fringe

This image, like other works by Belmore, oscillates between beauty and repulsion. The wound prevents a pleasurable gaze upon the nude woman’s body, yet the suggestiveness of her pose and the absence of a return gaze make it hard to look away. The red drips suspended from the stitches of the gash are not blood but strings of glistening beads. The wound is a symbol of both tenacity and the inexcusable violence that many Indigenous women endure.