The Wounded Woman Project, A Martyrdom of Life

The Wounded Woman Project – A martyrdom of life. A biography, a tragedy and the overcome. A story dedicated to all the wounded women in the world.

“Provoking work that invites you into the world of Reinfried Marass. Beautiful Art Photos. I found the story on “The Wounded Woman Project, A Martyrdom of Life” very moving, especially as a woman. I find Reinfried has shot her with a delicate and insightful hand. In the photo of “Welcome to Hell” , it seems to hold an inner eye. The wall is broken like her on the side that is darker. The other side is less broken and is near the light. She, still touching the darker side is now mainly on the lighter side and is facing the light, a sign of hope. She reminds me a bit of Edith Piaf, who also had a very difficult life. I thank Reinfried Marass for sharing his eye of the world. I hope he finds time to do more work, like the photos of her” – Lady Sharon

“Reinfried Marass paints the inner world of her on a photographic canvas. The photos make you feel her experiences. He takes you on a trip through her life of despair, hard knocks, wrecks and then on to reflection, life wisdom & exhilaration for living the life of a lady” – Muse Memo

“Amazingly beautiful and vivid photos. The story is as compelling as the photos. He captures much depth in his photos and has a genuine artistic eye which allows the viewer as closest to the soul of his subject as possible” – Cher / Writer

About ‘The Wounded Woman Project’ & ‘A Martyrdom of Life’ : At the age of eight years she was raped by one of her mother’s steadily changing friends. Her mother committed suicide at age of 30. The public welfare put her to a boarding school, and soon she and her sister were passed on to foster parents on a farm where both were treated like ‘cheap farm helpers’ , not like beloved kids.

Thereafter she went to Vienna, Austria’s capital – a young, inexperienced, but pretty girl from the country side in the jungle of Austria’s largest city. Very soon she was introduced to the wrong people and spent some time in a gang. In her twenties she was married to a very violent guy who was drunken 7 days a week and who spent most of his time in prison.

He bashed her in a regular way, broke her nose, threw her out of the window and tried her to kill in the bathtub. She survived 4 assassinations by her husband. She decided to escape and leave the guy together with the 5 years old son. He got mad, splashed a bottle of fuel at her and lighted her up. She incurred third and four degree-burns on her whole upper body. Her husband was put into prison and killed himself (or likely was killed by other prisoners).

After years of hospitalization she decided to start to work as a nurse by herself in Austria’s largest hospital, helping others. Besides her day job she does modelling as a semi-professional. Up to her 40’s there have been only very few sunny days in her life. In collaboration with Austria’s leading female magazine ‘Woman’ she wrote down her first auto-biography. The book is available in German language only.

This has happened 20 years ago and at present she is working on a second book. A follow-up, something titled like ‘The Overcome – The years after’. Whilst the first book is more of a diary of hell, the latter one shall give hope to all the wounded people (especially women). To show that is possible to overcome – to find life, love and laugh again. The images shown are especially dedicated to the tragedy of her life. Some of the images will be used to illustrate the book. And the images will be used in small exhibitions, underlining her book readings and signings. The series still isn’t finished, some of the images are still not processed.

Many people might think the images are all about erotic, or at least too erotic. First, sexual violence was always a part of her life, and she was raped more than once, including forced sex by her husband. Some of the images below should be viewed with that in mind. And it isn’t possible to express those themes by harmful images.

Second (and as stated in my biography), I raised up in Neulengbach, a small Austrian town where ‘Egon Schiele’ lived, worked and finally was prisoned for his erotic paintings and drawings. The primary school building was close to the court and one day the ‘Schiele Cell’ was shown to all pupils. This can be called my first contact with art, and ‘elements’ of Schiele’s work can be found in these photographs below as well, that’s part of my style.

The ‘Road Story Of Her Life’

She was known to me as a model. I knew she had written a book but wasn’t really aware of the content. Sometimes we had spoken about a shooting but there never was an opportunity. In spring 2008 I should do a ‘Road Story’ for the American ‘Austin Healey Marque’ magazine.

The script called for a mature model and I asked her for modeling. At this time she was down again. Her new love has left her again. Although that has happened months ago she still was struggling with life again.

I guessed that three days in a British roadster, hitting the roads, surrounded by beautiful landscape,etc. would blow away her sorrows a bit and booked her for the shooting. Within the 3 shooting days she made me familiar with the tragedy of her former life.

And besides the ‘normal’ shots for the magazine my cam was intentionally leaded to do some other shots, more relined to her life. And the editorial story turned out as a story of her life as well. Thanks to the editor of the magazine, Mr. Reid Trummel, even some of these images have been included in the story and she got a 6-page spread in the magazine. She had tears of luck in her eyes when she first heard about it. Sometimes it takes very few to make a lil’ girl happy and smiling.

All images are done with professional equipment and processes with calibrated hardware. None of the images above are cropped. Original image size is 4218 x 2848 pixels. Photos are taken in RAW file format and Adobe-RGB color space. Besides the RAW the highest quality I can deliver is 16 bit Tiff file format. Images are processed an adapted to my personal taste. Neutral versions, similarities and variations in landscape or portrait mode are available.

Related links :
Crossovers and more stories featuring the model :
Editorial Road Story – The winding roads of Austria – Healeying the Austrian Alps
Car & Girl – Mustang girl with classic car Ford Mustang

Abandoned and lonesome. There she is, standing on this abandoned train station. Lonesome, with nothing else then her lil’ bag. Waiting for the train to bring some love and laugh to her life. And maybe one day the train even will arrive.

‘Wounded Woman Project’ featured in Austrian ‘WOMAN’ magazine – Februar 2009

WOMAN, published bi-monthly, is Austria’s leading and largest women- and lifestyle magazine with 540.000 readers.

The WOMAN magazine runs a 3-page story in the February 03/2009 issue, titled ‘Model in spite of scars’. The feature is about her life, her model career, her first autobiography ‘Willkommen in der Hölle’ (Welcome to Hell), her upcoming new book, and about the actual ‘Wounded Woman Project’.

Download the full article as pdf.file → Woman Magazine Februar 2009

2 of my photographs done for the Wounded Woman Project have been published in the article. Many thanks to the editorial staff of the WOMAN magazine for supporting the project, especially to chief editor Ms. Katrin Kuba for the well written article, and Ms. Beate Schneider for the great layout. → WOMAN magazine website

Muse Memo – A Wounded Woman at Road’s End ?

The ‘Wounded Woman Project’ and a reprint of my biography at ‘Muse Memo’. A feature entitled ‘A Wounded Woman at Road’s End’ ?

The Project:

The Wounded Woman – A martyrdom of life. Her biography, the tragedy and the overcome. A story dedicated to all the wounded women in the world. Her Biography, her books and attending photographs.

She is a woman who has known pain, shame & abuse, but at her core, her strength has prevailed to find hope, accomplishment and to become an inspiration.

Reinfried Marass paints the inner world of her on a photographic canvas. The photos make you feel her experiences. He takes you on a trip through her life of despair, hard knocks, wrecks and then on to reflection, life wisdom & exhilaration for living the life of a lady. See the full Memo here http://www.musememo.com/roadsend.htm

MUSE MEMO is a beautiful designed website and web project dedicated to the ‘Fine Arts’. MuseMemo.com delivers creative style of living news in a pictorial memo and features inspiring people, places and things within art, design and entertainment. Topics include new releases, events, style, decor and artist profiles.

‘Wounded Woman Project’ featured in Austrian ‘WOMAN’ magazine – March 2010

WOMAN, Austria’s leading and largest women- and lifestyle magazine, again featured the ‘Wounded Woman Project’ in the March 2010 print issue (issue #5, page 161).

The article includes a brief overview of her tragedy, but mainly refers to her recently finished manuscript (the second part of her auto-biograph) and the fact that she is looking for a publisher to hover the German-speaking region, as well as the international market.

Many thanks to the editors of the WOMAN magazine for supporting the project.

→ WOMAN magazine Website

Download the full article as pdf.file → Woman Magazine March 2010