Purple is the colour of a fresh bruise. Haley’s latest videopoem, “Purple Lipstick” confronts the insidious nature of domestic violence through compelling juxtapositions. A disembodied female voice employs vivid language, absurdist against a backdrop of banality, images of “normal” family life. Numb in her isolation and still in her nurse’s uniform, a wife and mother prepares dinner. The inherent terror of her homelife is invoked with excruciating tension. Its brutality can only be alluded to.
