Corseted girls and monsters of the night
June 19, 2007 
A Delaware couple have created some dark, but fun, artwork, which features women in high heels and corsets lounging in front of tattoo-style designs or against a backdrop of familiar characters from horror.
Ric Frane and wife Wendy Mitchell will be displaying a selection of their paintings at Talleyville Frame Shoppe & Gallery, all of which feature a girl dressed in burlesque or gothic garb or figures from horror fable.
In one painting, Dracula's shadowed face is painted against a blood-red background and his extended fingers appear to be about to snatch at a young, pale woman wearing a black corset who reclines on her side in the foreground.
Another painting, entitled Stand and Deliver, features a woman in a black corset trimmed with white frills topped with a highwayman's hat and brandishing a gun in the style of Dick Turpin, which would cost $400 to buy.
Other paintings feature Frankenstein, Nosferatu and characters from the Addams family.
The couple, who have been together for 19 years, say that while they specialised in nudes while at art school, they believe these images, in which the women are covered by corsets and bikinis, appeal to a wider audience than total nudity would.
"We really wanted people to not be afraid to look at it," Mr Frane told the News Journal. "These are sexual enough. They get the point across."
© Adfero Ltd
