Darja Bajagić is a Chicago-based artist who has become known in recent years for canvases that depict harrowing violence. Her works pull together fragments culled from a panoply of sources including pornography websites, religious iconography, murderabilia stores and sensationalized news reporting of grotesque murders. Brazenly explicit, these compositions hold a mirror to a sinister world that, despite its aspirations towards liberal advancement, is inflicted by the fetishism of cruelty and exploitation. Whereas others use their practices as platforms to assert political and social stances, Bajagić has been—and continues to be—steadfastly opposed to taking obvious moral stances in her work. While her intentional ambiguity often attracts misinterpretation and ire, the artist’s seemingly compulsive attraction to gore and licentiousness stems from a desire to amplify truths about human nature’s darkest inclinations.