'The opposite action for shame is to tell your secret.' Sexual assault art show opening

Paul Kuehnel, York Daily Record
·2 min read

Erica Gaimari was 6 years old when, in April 1988, she was sexually assaulted. It took another 35 years during trauma recovery work for her to start expressing what had happened to her through creating art. Since last November, she has created a wall of art, and it will be shown during the gallery showing "Survivors: A Conversation about Consent" in the lower gallery of Marketview Arts starting April 1.

The show, at 37 W. Philadelphia St. in York, runs through April 29th, featuring 20 artists with visual and spoken word.

Erica Gaimari describes her first painting, 'Shame' saying, 'because this is the way it felt in my body. I was getting trapping in this spiral of toxic shame...'
Erica Gaimari describes her first painting, 'Shame' saying, 'because this is the way it felt in my body. I was getting trapping in this spiral of toxic shame...'

“When I was 6 … I didn’t have the words to express what it was that happened to me. … (Today) the art has given me the ability to find these emotions, figure out what they are ... that these things were very difficult for you and you can learn to grow after them,” Gaimari described the basis of her recent work.

She said that she wanted to be an artist after graduating high school at age 17, but her mother steered her away from the career, not wanting her to be a “starving artist.” At the time, she took the advice as “my voice doesn’t matter.”

None of her early art survives today.

Gaimari cites the statistic that every 68 seconds someone is sexually assaulted in the United States, one in three women experience assault, and one in five before they are 18 years old.

See more art: Six artists use a mural to tell a story through the words of Yorkers

Photo gallery: See some of the local artists featured throughout the Yorktowne Hotel in photos

She hopes the exhibit will show people “the depth and breadth of sexual assault, it crosses all socioeconomic lines, all genders, all identities,” she said.

Erica Gaimari describes the show 'Survivors: A Conversation about Consent' that runs in the lower gallery at Marketview Arts in York from April 1 through the 29th.
Erica Gaimari describes the show 'Survivors: A Conversation about Consent' that runs in the lower gallery at Marketview Arts in York from April 1 through the 29th.

“The opposite action for shame is to tell your secret. You can take the power away from it and take the shame away from it if you own it ... and it doesn’t have to define me anymore,” Gaimari described how her personal pain moved to helping others.

“I can use it to tell my story so other people don’t feel so alone,” she said.

The show’s opening on Saturday will kickoff the YWCA York’s Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

I have captured life through the lens since 1983, and am currently a visual journalist with the USA Today Network. You can reach me at pkuehnel@ydr.com.

This article originally appeared on York Daily Record: Sexual assault victims art show at Marketview Arts