The Brooklyn Rail

“Show me your witches and I’ll show you your feelings about women.” —Pam Grossman

That cackling hag hunched over her bubbling cauldron? She was a priestess once. The wicked witch who haunts our fairy tales? A healer, stripped of her power and twisted into a monster. In times of rising authoritarianism, these depraved caricatures reveal an ancient pattern: when patriarchal power feels threatened, it first demonizes, then destroys, and then rewrites the story. Before these distortions, there were healers, storytellers, and guardians of female wisdom who understood that knowledge itself is power—and that power, in the hands of the marginalized, terrifies those who benefit from oppression.

I’ve spent years painting iconic female figures from Western art history, searching for hierarchical patterns to examine how certain tropes evolve, why they remain relevant, and who they benefit. It wasn’t until I began investigating witch hunts that I understood how profoundly these representations had been warped by patriarchal violence. The transformation from venerated to vilified wasn’t accidental—it was calculated, systematic, and terrifyingly effective. As authoritarian movements surge globally, the strategy remains unchanged: control the story, then control the bodies.

Consider the humble “old wives’ tales.” Before they were leather-bound morality lessons, they were whispered warnings passed between women in kitchens and nurseries. Marina Warner’s research reveals these stories—shared by servants, nurses, and grandmothers—as coded survival guides, rich with forbidden knowledge. When male collectors like Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm captured these tales, they misunderstood and sanitized them to suit their own ideals, stripping away thornier truths about marriage, violence, and female agency.

The erasure runs deep. Books were burned, artworks destroyed, legends rewritten—each act of destruction deliberately reshaping our understanding of the past. The connection between intimate female talk and the control of women’s flesh—its pleasures and sufferings—echoes through history to the present day. Women gathering posed such a threat that a 1603 broadsheet mapped out places they shouldn’t be allowed to meet. The insinuation being, women knew things—about bodies, pleasure, and power—that terrified the powers of church, law, and science. The attempt to silence their “gossip” reveals the revolutionary potential in female communities.

Viewed through this lens, art history becomes a battleground for representation. I began examining the female figures we’ve inherited from the old masters—the lounging odalisques, the giggling nymphs, the whispering choruses. What if these characters embodied a flickering of female power, rather than just a voyeuristic feast? My paintings pull at the shadows of historical works, asking what dormant narratives might lie within, and whether deciding to see these women anew could change our present.

You can’t find what you aren’t looking for. The gendered power dynamic is so calcified that the narrative is: “there is nothing to find.” The Suppressed Histories Archives, established in 1970 by Max Dashu, shows otherwise. It documents the spectrum of women’s history and culture, boasting fifteen thousand slides and thirty thousand images that reveal millennia of revered, celebrated women. Ironically, after a certain point in history, much of what we piece together about women’s activities comes from ecclesiastical texts listing what they were forbidden to do—they were forbidden to hang amulets on their looms, sing into their work, or perform rituals and incantations. They were not allowed to call upon the Goddess Diana, nor to remain silent. These prohibitions sketch a shadow map of female power—and a desperate need to contain it. 

Silvia Federici’s groundbreaking work reveals how the persecution of “witches” was a pre-condition for capitalism’s rise, targeting women’s control over reproduction and their own bodies. She argues that what Karl Marx left out was the gender component, and that the criminalization of midwifery, prophecy, and healing suffocated female autonomy, relegating women to domestic labor that holds little cultural currency. The formula: make poor women, make more poor people to fuel production so the wealthy can stay wealthy and in power.

The medieval witch hunts show how fascist machinery operates: identify a vulnerable group, link them to social problems, create moral panic, then unleash violence. The torture devices—breast rippers, pear irons, bridles—were designed not just to punish, but to spectacularly degrade and humiliate female bodies. This template of dehumanization became a brutal tool for colonization and echoes in modern oppression. These public spectacles reshaped societal views, teaching generations of women that silence and submission were survival strategies. After the overturning of Roe v. Wade, I thought about this inheritance of compliance—the painful truth that patriarchy is sustained through female collaboration.

Through research, I have developed a better understanding of what has been meant culturally by witchcraft versus how past and present folk traditions embed layers of meaning in their spiritual practices. There is an intention, a ritual, ingredients, and an expected outcome—one that shapes a new reality. The striking parallels between spellcraft and art making, magic-making, and meaning-making are clear. Art is a form of magic.

In The Raving Ones (2022), my 28-foot installation, ecstatic, ferocious, pleasure-seeking Maenads gather among medicinal herbs and serpents. They summon Artemis, Hecate, and Medusa—goddesses in both their celebrated and reviled forms. The paintings are layered with magical signifiers and enchanted materials—crystals, moon water, color magic—and blessed with “A Spell for Self-Sovereignty,” crafted by witch Pam Grossman. These aren’t mere images; they’re meant to serve as incantations disrupting centuries of repression.

Threaded with moonlight takes this further, exploring textile-making as a source of power. Global patterns traditionally used for protection and abundance emerge as subversive languages, weaving together traditions that span centuries and cultures. These aren’t just decorative designs—they’re talismanic symbols, honoring women’s labor while exploring the potential for communication and invocation embedded within their work.

Today, a new generation—primarily women, LGBTQ+ folks, and people of color—is reclaiming these practices as tools of resistance. They’re rejecting the false divides that Federici says oppressive systems rely on: mind/body, nature/human, us/them. The witch embodied a holistic worldview that threatened hierarchical power by recognizing the interconnectedness of all things. In an era of climate crisis, rising fascism, and renewed attacks on bodily autonomy, this isn’t mere escapism—it’s radical reimagining.

The word “spell” shares roots with “story” and “narrative”—a reminder that speaking is power, that we shape reality through the stories we tell. The witches in my paintings aren’t victims or fantasies. They’re survivors, teachers, revolutionaries. They remind us that when conventional paths to power are blocked, there are always alternative routes. Whether through political engagement or ritual, through art or activism, through conventional channels or magical thinking, marginalized people have always found ways to resist and reclaim power.

The witches are indeed back—not as figures of superstition, but as symbols of resistance, rebellion, and the enduring power of female knowledge. And this time, they’re not burning, they’re rising… and we’re going to need them.