When 19-year-old Emma Krenzer came home from the Women's March, she decided to share her latest art project with the world. The piece, which was completed for a class at Nebraska Wesleyan University, is a powerful personification of the marks left by sexual assault, and has since gone viral on Twitter.
The prompt for this project was to create some sort of map. I created a map of human touch on another humans body and it's lasting impact pic.twitter.com/3110jwIMPt
— ur mcm (@cheezitfan1) January 23, 2017
“I made this project largely for myself to actually visualize the lasting impact that touch can have on an individual,” Krenzer told BuzzFeed News. After printing out a large-scale nude photo of her friend, the student used different colors to fingerpaint where various people in her life have touched her.
“I thought about what was true for myself, and also, what I perceived to be commonly true for people in general, when I mapped out these touches,” she said.
The key, painted on the side of the image, includes her mom, her dad, her siblings, her friends, her lovers, and, finally, someone who she told "no." That one is bright red, and has handprints on her upper thighs, neck, and genitals to indicate assault.
Altogether, the illustration is an important reminder of how touch sticks with you, the good and the bad. The overwhelming response has convinced Krenzer to make the project into a series and even sell prints.
“Some people told me they burst into tears after viewing the piece and others thanked me repeatedly for creating it," she said. "I really don’t have the words to describe how it makes me feel.”
That's okay, because she says it all in her art.