This Scorned Photographer Turned Her Ex’s Stuff into Art

Oh, isn’t love exciting and wonderful? Until it’s over, that is. Breaking up is always soul destroying. And, on top of it all, more often than not one runs into a very common problem: what to do with the bunch of stuff your ex left behind in the rush to leave and, months later, is still spread across your apartment, re-igniting you anger and taking up space?

New York-based photographer Statia Grossman decided to put her skills and art’s renowned therapeutic properties together and came up with “Shit You Left Behind.” In this humorous yet poignant photographic series she took self-portraits with her ex’s belongings, adding bitter messages addressed to him. (“You were such a tool,” for example.)

“I really ran with it as a way to work out my feelings and my anger. It was visceral,” Grossman told the Huffington Post. She also explained that she had originally come up with the concept after her (previous) divorce, but her ex-husband picked up his belongings before she could start using them.

Grossman first shared “Shit You Left Behind” on a Tumblr, but she has recently published a monograph compiling the series. A funny, cheeky gift for sure. Just, maybe not the best one for Valentine’s Day.