Bella Fenton: The Bogeyman

BRAG presents 'The Bogeyman' by Bella Fenton, Winner of the 2023 Bathurst Grange Distillery x BRAG Summer Gin Art Competition

Last week I had a nightmare where a stranger chased me into my car outside an Aldi in Wollongong – a place I haven’t visited in years. I thought I had escaped him until an arm reached out from beneath the passenger seat and tried to grab me. I woke up clutching my own hands so tightly I thought I might break my fingers.

My series of paintings, The Bogeyman, explores the strangeness of nightmares and the shifting sense of identity that comes with living through these unreal timelines. Through recurring characters, the works form a twisting, disordered narrative in which a cowgirl becomes trapped in a world of horror drawn from both movies and everyday anxieties. The settings feel familiar yet slightly off, evoking unease and a dark, almost absurd humour as if things couldn’t possibly get any worse.

Within these distorted, dreamlike memories, I confront my own sense of self. Every figure and fragment belong to me: I am the people I see in my sleep, the shifting buildings, the blurred recollections. I am the victim in the horror movie and I am also the bogeyman.