Visual Art
A Portfolio of Visual Works
Search using the tags, in the gallery below, to focus the collection.
Hail Babalon
Our Lady, pulvis et ossa,
whose blood is my blood,
Blessed art thou amongst women,
Bless the abyss of thy womb,
CRADLE US.
Sacred Babalon, Mother of Earth,
We invoke our liberation!
Be with us now, alive with love and incandescent rage!
Ave Babalon.
“Kyre Eleison” – Denigrata
An experimental piece of collaborative audiovisual art, shot on S16 film. Featuring a cameo from author and magus, Alan Moore, the primary setting is the spiky, uninviting, chthonic, and earthy underbelly of Britain’s natural surroundings. Textural photography is juxtaposed against barren and bleak wide shots. It is non-narrative and non-linear, exploring an interplay of long, slow, lingering shots and furiously rapid montages and jarring jump cuts—inspired by A Field in England (2013).
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Director/Producer/Editor: Cavan McLaughlin
Director of Photography: Jason Weidner
Assistant Director: Daniel Oxer
Production Co-ordinator: Laura Roklicer
Assistant Camera: Daryl Scott
Production Assistant: Rosie Allen
Production Assistant: Kelvin Chikorowondo
Production Assistant: Robert Nesbitt
Production Assistant: Victoria Rooney
Production Assistant: Luke Sheehan
Production Assistant: Sophie Turner
Location Assistant: Peter Norman
Colourist: Emily Johnson
Badb
Nacht Hexe
Badb (2020)
Gouache and glaze medium on canvas
16 x 20 inches
High quality print are available in our online shop.
Home (section of Mother Danu)
Nacht Hexe
Home (section of Mother Danu) (2020)
Oils and poster paint on canvas
High quality print are available in our online shop.
Krone
Nacht Hexe
Krone (2020)
Oils on canvas
8 x 12 inches
High quality print are available in our online shop.
Mother Danu
Nacht Hexe
Mother Danu (2020)
Oils and poster paint on canvas
24 x 32 inches
High quality print are available in our online shop.
Salomé
Nacht Hexe
Salomé (2020)
Gouache, charcoal, glaze Medium and candle wax on canvas
20 x 24 inches
High quality print are available in our online shop.
The Madonna
Nacht Hexe
The Madonna (2020)
Gouache, oil, charcoal and menstrual blood on canvas
20 x 30 inches
High quality print are available in our online shop.
The Sacred and the Profane
Nacht Hexe
The Sacred and the Profane (2020)
Gouache, glaze medium and charcoal on canvas
23 x 33 inches
High quality print are available in our online shop.
Vesta
Nacht Hexe
Vesta (2020)
Oils on canvas
12 x 16 inches
High quality print are available in our online shop.
Composition
Musical Performance and Compositional Projects
“Kyrie Eleison” – Denigrata
Director/Producer/Editor: Cavan McLaughlin
Director of Photography: Jason Weidner
Assistant Director: Daniel Oxer
Production Co-ordinator: Laura Roklicer
Assistant Camera: Daryl Scott
Production Assistant: Rosie Allen
Production Assistant: Kelvin Chikorowondo
Production Assistant: Robert Nesbitt
Production Assistant: Victoria Rooney
Production Assistant: Luke Sheehan
Production Assistant: Sophie Turner
Location Assistant: Peter Norman
Colourist: Emily Johnson
Fiction
Upcoming Projects
Hail Baphomet
Hail Baphomet
I am the dissolution of the self.
The atrophied canker of a sepulchral mausoleum, putrescence effervescent inside veins, subjective mortification.
Senescence and devastation.
Abyssic womb of abomination, I have waited, withered and slumped in vast, cloying depths of this wasteland.
…yet I screamed so loudly, until my throat was torn, my bloodied fists thundering upon the dried husk of eld. All dead. All crushed to dust…
In my dearth as death, my cadaver imprint scorched, entombed within the earth,
Laid. To. Rest
a corpse abandoned but moving, fracture-cracking bones bursting spores of rancour, sifting in ascendancy of a soft breeze.
Oil-black feathers, sharp against the coolness of the tomb, thrusting through parchment skin. Black wings rise, ragged feet to hooves, rend the stony plains apart. From ruination, Baphomet will flourish.
I am the wound that never heals,
the lesion weeping septic tears of plague.
Lacerate to expurgate,
lustration blooms in me now; I am my own carrion flower
whose carcass stinks with the sweat of vilification.
Rise from this clay! Rise Corpus Delicti!
A sacred configuration of the whore as truth; the dark,
abominating woman who destroys the scrotophillic deceit of
the Rule of the Father!
I consume you…
Solve et Coagula.
Hail Hekate
Hail Hekate
I am hunger, I am thirst,
Where I bite, I hold ‘til I die.
And even after death, they must cut out my mouthful
from my enemy’s body
and bury it with me.
I can fast a hundred years and not die.
I can lie a hundred nights on the ice.
I can drink a river of blood and not burst.
I can swallow the river of tears; I’ll drink yours first.
Show me your enemies.
(‘The Prince’, Denigrata, (2018), which draws upon and quotes Prince Caspian (Lewis, C. S. 1998, p.145))
Hail Babalon
Hail Babalon
Our Lady, pulvis et ossa,
whose blood is my blood,
Blessed art thou amongst women,
Bless the abyss of thy womb,
CRADLE US.
Sacred Babalon, Mother of Earth,
We invoke our liberation!
Be with us now, alive with love and incandescent rage!
Ave Babalon.
What a Church is
What a Church is.
It has not been kind to women, the church.
It has been cruel, and damaging and scolding, the church.
A man swathed in the cloths of his father, pointing his bony finger at women, the sinners, who were always deserving of punishment.
The Church.
Through the power and vestments of the church, man has held dominion.
Through the righteous anger and arrogance of the church, man has cast aspersions.
Through the condemnation and burning, man said we were witches.
And he burned us.
THE CHURCH.
What a church should be, is a home.
A sanctuary, a shield, a fortress.
A church should stand against the bigotry of man, not be his sword
that cuts the heads from our pretty shoulders and gouges out our hearts.
It should be a place for singing, to lift our voices to the heavens, to come together in love.
The church.
Yet what a church is to me, is a sandstone womb,
the vulvic folds of the heavy wooden door that sweeps you down the warm aisle, welcoming you inside.
As you stumble down the nave, you gasp in awe at the splendour of the sacred place you find yourself in. You drink from the font and know the only sermon that is worthy of your faith, the only voice that should sing out from the pulpit, shrouded by the glare of the golden lectern, is the body of woman. Our sanctuary, our shield, our fortress.
My church is a sandstone womb.
Home
Home
A soft breeze wisps across the sandy dunes of you.
I haul my tattered sack of broken bones, what’s left of me, and drop it at your feet.
You bend your strong back to scoop me up,
All sinew and blood.
A cool wind dances across the oceans in your eyes.
Deep teal and cerulean,
crests of green waves playing.
A dolphin, a sea otter, an orca I become
and lose myself in their depths.
A crisp winter zephyr
knocks against the church bells of your voice.
The low bass echoing its sonorous call across the frosty fields.
Come to me,
You sing,
Step inside my sanctuary so I may give you solace.
Come to me,
So I can protect you.
Come home.
The Dearest Friend
The Dearest Friend
When I first saw you
You cowered at the back of that cold, cold space.
Snow lay heavy upon the ground.
I saw your bright eyes shining from the abyss, clouded with suspicion and fear.
I knew you had suffered.
I knew.
A list of rules
Pinned to the door.
Lutheran.
Each word a commandment,
Yet I understood.
I have these rules too.
Nobody read them.
But I read yours.
You were lead out
Into the snow.
I put my hand out
So you could get the measure of me.
I waited.
And waited.
You stole my sandwich on the way back.
I was glad to give it.
I took you with me to a warm, open home.
Bright and comfortable with things that were just for you.
I know you didn’t understand
But a chiming, shining Bell showed you how.
You have sat with me in the darkness,
Run with me in the light.
Protected me from evil
And stood with me in joy.
You are my dearest friend.
George.
The Shining Bell
The Shining Bell
Five homes in seven months, they said.
Your rap sheet, your crimes.
Why was this so bad? I asked,
Shrugged shoulders, noncommittal, silence.
You brimmed with nervous energy, behind it lay your terror.
Being given up on, rejected, sent back to the home.
Again. Again. Again.
I swore to you, I made a solemn vow,
that I’d not do the same (pain upon pain upon pain).
We went home. You went mad. We compromised.
Severed moments bled into days, wept into weeks,
I began to see a blinding light, piercing
straight from your sacred heart, to mine.
The chiming, shining Bell. Your soul alight with love.
Never mind your illness; I chanted that oath every moment
a seizure stole you, carried your mind away
and wracked your little body so…
I was always there when you came back.
Always.
Despite the pacing, despite the ‘hush, hush, hush’ through your paroxysms,
It never quelled your fiery courage.
And your love. Your brave, resilient love.
I was blessed with eight years with you,
before the dark time came. And I knew it too.
In my bones.
You struggled on, you sweet soul, forever the warrior.
Our last journey together broke my heart
but I wouldn’t leave you.
I buried my face, a river, in your neck
as you gently closed your hazel eyes for the last time.
A month or so later, I sat at my piano,
wishing my heartbreak into its keys.
I swore, then, I saw you, I felt your body,
leaning against my legs.
And I knew, you were checking on me,
seeing me from spirit one last time,
before your journey with me stopped.
My beautiful shining Bell.
How I love you still.
The Three Rivers
The Three Rivers
- My Mouth is a Graveyard.
My mouth is now a graveyard,
Its tombstones are my teeth.
My tongue the rolling grass
that grips its corpses, underneath.Grief like roiling, crashing waves
that push against my smile,
My mouth is now a graveyard
And I’m drowning all the while. - Sister-Witch.
‘Women can’t be friends, you know!’
This mantra carved in stone
by silly boys and father’s sick
with fear, they must not show.‘Women hate each other’,
their fog horns blaring out.
I shove my hands across my ears!
You must hate them all! they shout.‘Use their loathing to divide,
Conquer them you must!
Trample, rape, destroy them
and kill them with your lust’.I shut that door and locked it tight,
Barred with chains and steel.
You will not make me hate my own!
So, I refuse to kneel.I met you on a summer’s day,
a choir in the air.
Our souls just knew each other,
A sisterhood, we dared.Scrotophillic screams, vomits roar,
Scold us from our path.
You are my friend, my sister-witch,
It’s them who aren’t enough. - Dark Meat.
Deadly is your game
Artful is your fist.
Repellent in the half-light,
Killing Fields, adrift.Many fell at dawn
‘cept me, I’m standing still.
All the little songbirds broke,
Trodden ‘neath your sill.Death puts out her hand
and pulls us all to her embrace.
Rue the day you crossed my path!
Killer, hide your face!My heart is made of Dark Meat,
Embers charred and black.
Arsenic-green, not lucid-seen,
Tell Mother, I won’t be back.
Songbird
Songbird
You’d never let me say her name.
And I knew you’d try and stop me,
every time.
So I’d try to hurry up and rev my voice,
turning over a thick, heavy engine
but you’d silence me just as the word
was speeding towards my lips,
all the letters
crashing into my teeth.
Scrabble.
17 points.
I lose.
We’d never truly clicked, had we?
Not if we’re being honest.
The only way I knew you’d remarried,
one beige, spotless-carpeted Christmas,
I saw a letter, casually lazing about on a sideboard.
Mr and Mrs, it said.
And my link to you grew dim, gossamer-thin
against my wall of hurt.
No protection at all.
Your house, a bric-à-brac of
objects from my childhood:
that hostess trolley, some silverware,
all your Len Deighton books…
Meaningless now, my building blocks,
demolished in the explosion.
The New Breed made me
MIND MY MANNERS.
Things were different now.
No longer mine.
You knew I’d smoked a cigarette in your bathroom.
The Shame.
But she was a songbird, you know,
A firecrest,
All blacks and yellows and pretty songs,
caught in a glue trap.
Her delicate feet melted to her cage.
The only choice was to bite her way out,
which she did.
And fell straight into
the cat’s open mouth.
I say her name now.
Hazel.
Academia
A record of scholarly works and activity
Publications and Research Outputs
Upcoming Co-Editorships
Embodying the Music and Death Nexus: Consolations, Salvations and Transformations, Progressive Connexions and Emerald Publishing. Forthcoming. With Marie Josephine Bennet and Gary Levy.
Metal and Dis/Ability: Crips, Crowds and Cacophony, Emerald Publishing. With Amber Clifford-Napoleone.
Academic Authorships and Performances:
Shadrack, J. H. ‘Extremities within Extremity: Sisterhood as Strategies of Resistance in the UK Metal Underground Scene’ in On Extremity: Sounds, Words, and Experiences (eds. Nelson Varas-Diaz, Niall Scott and Bryan Bardine), Lexington Press, Forthcoming
Shadrack, J. H. Black Metal, Trauma, Subjectivity and Sound: Screaming the Abyss. Emerald Publishing, 2020. https://books.emeraldinsight.com/page/detail/Black-Metal-Trauma-Subjectivity-and-SoundBlack-Metal,-Trauma,-Subjectivity-and-Sound/?k=9781787569263
‘Shadrack’s brave usage of autoethnography to explore how black metal is a movement beyond music presents a new and refreshing paradigm through the exploration of an often-misunderstood subculture. Her skill in intertwining methodology with her own subjective reflexivity is an important and much-needed addition to gender, music, and performance studies’ – Laina Dawes, author of What Are You Doing Here? A Black Woman’s Life and Liberation in Heavy Metal.
‘Seldom do we as scholars get to interact with a professional musician who sees their work as autoethnographic; even more seldom do we see that valuable and difficult work coming from women in genres such as heavy metal. With an eye on both critical theory and musical performance, Dr Shadrack creates an interwoven story of personal experience, gender studies and women’s studies, sexual oppression and sexual violence, and brings forth deep discussions of religion, iconography, existentialism, women’s voices in and out of metal, and the many ways in which women are symbolized, represented and delimited. It is a groundbreaking work, one that continues a line of work in gender and heavy metal that represents some of the best work on gender in publication right now. The image of Denigrata Herself, the horned goddess screaming at the patriarchy, is an icon for our times’ – Amber Clifford-Napoleone, Professor of Anthropology, University of Central Missouri, USA.
‘Dr Jasmine Shadrack has accomplished a tremendous feat in this book: as an autoethnographic study, she has combined the rigours of academic research with an unsurpassed level of insight that sets a new standard in how reflection and experience can be expressed. Despite its complexity, the text is extremely accessible and weaves a narrative, making it a guide for others on how music and the arts can be a friend to those suffering from the effects of trauma and abuse where the two intersect. This is a book of hope and a source of healing. Even though it articulates a principled stand through Shadrack’s use of black metal, the relevance of her discussion reaches far beyond the music culture where she finds her solace. Her work will resonate with a wide-ranging audience – not only those working in the field of gender, feminism, metal studies and cultural studies, but also the many victims of abuse, marginalisation and those suffering oppression’ – Dr Niall Scott, Reader in Philosophy and Popular Culture, University of Central Lancashire, UK
Death and the Senses (forthcoming 2023) edited by Christina Welch and Jasmine Hazel Shadrack, Equinox Publishing
Shadrack, J. H., Sonnex, C., & Roe, C. A. (2019). Ritual Occultation and the Space between Worlds: Exploring the discursive nature of the ‘flow’ state in Black Metal and Pagan performative practice. In McLaughlin, C. (Ed.) Trans- States: The art of crossing over. (pp. 64–86). Fulgur Press. https://fulgur.co.uk/books/trans-states-art-crossing/
Shadrack, J.H., as Nachthexe. (2020). Healing the Mother Wound: Metal Performance and Grief Management. In Bennett, M.J. and Gracon, D. (Ed.) Music and Death: Interdisciplinary Readings and Perspectives. (pp.59–70). Emerald Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83867-945-320191010
Shadrack, J. (Author), Stevens, F. (Author), Rawley, S. (Author), Cameron, J. (Author), & Cargill, D. (Author). (2017). Denigrata ‘Rex Tremendae’: English/Latin. Performance, Very Metal Art LTD. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNVAJkN6QU4
Shadrack, J. H., Jones, R. E. (Ed.), & Davies, E. (Ed.) (2017). From Enslavement to Obliteration: extreme metal’s problem with women. In Under My Thumb: Songs that Hate Women and the Women who Love Them (Vol. 1, pp. 170-184). (Music/Politics). Repeater Books. https://repeaterbooks.com/product/under-my-thumb-song-that-hate-women-and-the-women-who-love-them/
Shadrack, J. H. Mater Omnium and the Cosmic Womb of the Abyss: Nomadic Interiorities and Matrifocal Black Metal Performance. In Metal Music Studies Journal, Volume 4, Number 2, 1 June 2018, pp. 281–292(12), Intellect Books, https://doi.org/10.1386/mms.4.2.281_1
Shadrack, J. H. Occupying the Simulation: the Sexualised Panopticon. Artéfact Revue #2, 2012, https://issuu.com/revue-artefact/docs/artefact_2/16
Shadrack, J. H., Panayotov, S. (Ed.), & Lukas, D. (Ed.) (2021). Malefica: the witch as restorative feminism in matrifocal black metal performance. In Black Metal Rainbows P M Press. Available in June, 2021. For more information, or to make a purchase see the publisher’s website here.
Shadrack, J. (Director). (2017). Performance of Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZBTIsgsnbE
Shadrack, J. H. (Director). (2015). Requiem Macabre. Performance of Saint-Saëns’ Opus 54 and Greig’s Hall of the Mountain King. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVmIK2J7Ns4
Shadrack, J. H. (Director). (2014). Gloriosa Fusione. Performance of Vivaldi’s Gloria, Verdi’s Dies Irae and Orff’s Carmina Burana. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=de3b7oFd-cc
McLaughlin, C. (Director), & Shadrack, J. (Performer). (2016). “Kyrie Eleison” by Denigrata. Digital or Visual Media https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVr0rbXk25Y
Shadrack, J. (Author), Stevens, F. (Author), Rawley, S. (Author), Cameron, J. (Author), Cargill, D. (Author), & Hudson, N. (Producer). (2015). Denigrata ‘Missa Defunctorum: Requiem Mass in A Minor’. Composition, Self-Released. http://denigrata.bandcamp.com/releases
Shadrack, J. H. (2013). Resisting the Palimpsest: reclamation of the female cultural body. Art and Design Review, 1(2). https://doi.org/10.4236/adr.2013.12003
Shadrack, J. (Composer). (2012). Film Score Composition. Fractured (dir. Marcus Ako, Mark Holland), 2012. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4215580/
Shadrack, J. H. (2011). V versus Hollywood: a discourse on polemic thievery. Studies in Comics: Alan Moore Themed Issue, 2(1). https://doi.org/10.1386/stic.2.1.195_1
Reviews
Hagen, R. (2021). Backpatches and Elbowpatches #6: Subjectivity and Autoethnography in Metal Studies. Invisible Oranges. [Review of Screaming the Abyss (2020)] https://www.