Four months now, it felt like someone was watching her in her home.
When she turned around, there was no one there. Of course there wasn't.
She lived alone. She didn't like it, but she couldn't afford to
move. Living in this old building was just so cheap. This is how
she was able to paint for a living. But that feeling, it didn't
go away. It only got worse. She started seeing things, a flash
of light in the corner of her eye, as if something bright had passed
by her open door. She looked, but nothing was ever there. And
yet the feeling grew until one day it took over. She sat down to
paint and the image of the woman would not leave her mind. She had
to paint her every detail, and then a black figure slowly came to life.
She moved her brush up and down, side to side. She was
not in control. Someone or something was guiding her hand. Five hours later
she set the brush down. The woman left her mind. She was now
in the canvas. In this episode, we will hear stories about paintings that
resulted in much more than just a simple admiration of beauty, with some even
ending and debt. Please look up the images of these paintings at her own
risk. My name is Edwin, and here it's a horror story. Zvetlana
Tellitz was a Ukrainian artist. She specialized in surreal and abstract art and studied
at the Odessa Grecov Art College. Her paintings could be found in art exhibits,
but one painting in particular made her famous. It was the painting of
a woman. She finished it in five hours one bright sunny morning in nineteen
ninety six. When she sat down to paint, she didn't have a plan,
not until the image of the woman consumed Spitlana's mind. The end result
was a painting of a woman from the waist up. There are clouds behind
her. The sky looks dark and gloomy, with different shades of gray and
green. It's raining. It looks a little distorted. She's in a black
dress, a black head covering and black wide brim hat. The brim of
the hat covers the width of the painting and it's protecting the woman from the
rain. Her face is long and she's looking down. She's not smiling,
but not frowning either. There are different interpretations of what the woman is feeling.
She could be sad, melancholy or even maybe arrogant. No one knows,
not even Svetlana, who isn't even sure who the woman is. The
woman wasn't anyone specific. She just came into Vetlana's mind one day and stayed
there, and that was until Vetlana finished the painting. She called it the
Woman in the Rain. One month after she finished the paintings, Fetlana displayed
it in an art gallery and while it was up people felt drawn to it,
but they couldn't explain why. Exhibit at tendees felt anxiety and the strange
uneasiness when looking at the Woman in the Rain. Even so, Svetlana managed
to sell the painting more than once. There have been four different owners.
The first buyer was Larisa, a young business woman. She felt drawn to
it and had to own it. She hung the painting in her bedroom,
but from the minute till Larissa put it up, something was wrong. Suddenly
she couldn't sleep. She felt like someone was always watching her while she ate,
while she did the dishes, especially while she slept in her bed.
At all times. The feeling was the strongest in her bedroom, where the
painting hung on the wall. Not long after taking it home. Larissa wanted
to get rid of it. She ended up calling Svetlana and begging her to
take The Woman in the Rain back. Please take it away. I can't
sleep. It seems there is someone else in the apartment besides me. I
even took it off the wall, hid it behind the closet, but I
still can't. Her life only returned to Romo once Betlana took the painting back.
Svetlana continued to display The Woman in the Rain at art exhibits, and
not long after someone else was interested in buying it. Eugene approached during an
art exhibit. He needed it. S Vilana warned him, telling him what
Larissa had said, but it didn't matter to him. He was drawn to
it. He took the Woman home and hung it in his living room,
and as another Woman in the Rain sat on the wall, Eugene began to
see things. It started in his sleep. Every night, he closed his
eyes and she found her way in. It wasn't scary, not at first
at least, but he would see her, just see her and his dreams.
But not long after, the dreams turned into nightmares, and she was
always there, invading them, no matter how they started. She would just
find her way in and would stare at him, But then she left his
dreams. He started seeing things out of the corner of his eyes instead.
At first, Eugene thought it was because he was and sleeping very well,
but the shadows in the corner of his eyes began to take the shape of
a woman. She was everywhere and his dreams, and then when he was
awake, she followed him like a shadow. He couldn't take it, and
he also called Fitlana, begging her to take the woman back. And as
Fittlana did, she continued showing the painting and eventually someone else wanted it.
When he asked about it, it's Vitlana told him about Larissa, and Eugene
others warned him too. The locals had given the painting a bad reputation.
Everyone knew it had been returned twice. None of the stories mattered to him.
He needed it, and so he hung it, and just like the
previous owners, that's when everything started. He began having headaches, but that
wasn't the worst part. The woman's eyes would follow him wherever he went.
It began to appear everywhere. He started to feel like he was drowning in
the woman's eyes and he couldn't sleep. When he would close them, all
he could see were her eyes looking back at him. And like everyone else,
he calls Fetlana, begging her to take the painting back, and she
did, but this time she stopped showing it at art exhibits. She hung
the painting in a furniture salon, where it stayed for years, and like
everyone else, customers felt drawn to the painting. They would glance and stare
as they shocked. Some felt uneasiness, and some felt anxiety. The others
were more unlucky. Some customers saw her in their nightmares, and others saw
the Woman in the Rain inside of their homes. Afraid that the painting would
continue to harm those who looked at it, so Vetlana took it back.
She felt like maybe this wasn't meant to be out there for everyone to see.
It could be meant for someone specific, and when the time was right,
this person would find her. After eleven years, Russian musician Sergei Skakcho
reached out to Svetlana. He felt drawn to the Woman in the Rain,
like the painting belonged with him. He came across an article that contained a
picture of the painting along with all the strange stories. But the stories didn't
scare him off. He tracked down the location of the painting and purchased it
from Svetlana. She felt like this is where her creation belonged. Sergei took
The Woman in the Rain with him to Russia and hung it up in his
office, and it's still there today. But even though Sergey is happy with
the purchase, things are not perfect. The Woman in the Rain haunts him
too. His wife is afraid of the painting and they began to fight more.
They started hearing noises and they saw her roaming around their house at night.
Sergei is not afraid of this and he has no plans to get rid
of it. His wife, on the other hand, is so scared that
whenever he is gone, she takes a painting down. She keeps it tucked
away in the closet where she doesn't have to look at her. Reading about
the Woman in the Rain and looking at a picture of it left me wondering
can paintings actually be haunted? I mean, we hear about haunted objects all
the time, so it's not out of the realm of possibility, is it?
Art is so emotional and so personal, and artists puts their soul into
a piece of art, and looking at art makes you feel different emotions.
But what was behind this very specific painting? To this day no one knows.
Up Next, I'll tell you about another one of these paintings. Stay
with me. In nineteen seventy two, William Stoneham was trying to make a
living as an artist. He had a contract in which he agreed to produce
two paintings a month for a total of four hundred dollars. One night,
he decided to base one of those paintings on a picture of him as a
child. In the picture, Bill was five and standing in front of a
window in his grandma's apartment in Chicago. But the painting ended up taking a
life of its own. He painted a young boy looking straight ahead with no
expression on his face. His arms are by his side, and next to
him is a doll. The doll is almost as big as the boy.
Her eyes are black, her hair is brown and curly. She's in a
faded blue dress, and she's holding a battery cell with wires sticking out of
the top. They are outside in front of a window, and the window
behind them is pitch black except for some disembodied hands. Some of the hands
are open pushing into the window, others look like they are knocking on the
window, and others are facing down. In the distance, behind the window,
there's a faint moon. The painting is called The Hands Resist Him,
And when he painted it, he thought of himself and his childhood. You
see, Bill was adopted, and the hands in the painting represent other possible
lives that he could have had. The glass in the window was a barrier
between the worlds. The doll was a guide between them. He said.
The hands are the other lives, the glass that thin veil between waking and
dreaming. The doll is the imagined companion or guide through this realm. The
name of the painting comes from a poem his then wife, Rohan Panzetti wrote,
It's called the Hands resist Him, like the secret of his birth.
He is of the seeing vision. His strokes reveal them in a rush of
color, of madness, of mystics, and his head is the highest center.
He must confront its enemy. The hands resist him, like the secret
of his birth. His presence is a sanctum. Heartbeat felt in the darkness
and in passion. It sounds a sole gift to that silence. Bill put
the piece of art on display at the Faint Garden Gallery in Beverly Hills,
California, where it was viewed by many. Art critic Henry Seldis reviewed it
for the Los Angeles Times. The Hands Resist Him was purchased by actor John
Marley. It was the only painting that was sold from the gallery. Just
a few years after the painting was sold, those who came in contact with
it met terrible fates. Charles fein Garden, who held a gallery and contracted
Bill, died in nineteen eighty one, and Riselda Is to our critic,
died by suicide in nineteen seventy eight. She was found in his apartment.
John Marley, the actor who purchased the painting, died in nineteen eighty four.
Now this could have all been a coincidence, but all three men had
one thing in common the painting. After John Marley's death, the Hands Resist
Him disappeared. It resurfaced again in the year two thousand on eBay. It
was for sale. The ad was as follows. When we received this painting,
we thought it was really good art. A picker had found it abandoned
behind an old brewery. At the time, you wondered a little why a
seemingly perfectly fine painting would be discarded like that. Today we don't. One
morning, our four and a half year old daughter claimed the children in the
picture were fighting and coming into the room during the night. Now, I
don't believe in UFOs or Elvis being alive, but my husband was alarmed.
To my amusement, he set up a motion triggered camera for the night.
After three nights there were pictures. The last two pictures shown are from that
stakeout after seeing the boy seemingly exiting the picture under threat, who decided the
painting had to go. Please judge for yourself, but before you do,
please read the following warning and disclaimer. Warning do not bid on this painting
if you are susceptible to stress related disease, faint of heart, or are
unfamiliar with supernatural events. By bidding on this painting, you agree to release
the owners of all liability in relation to the sale or any events happening after
the sale that might be contributed to this painting. This painting may or may
not possess supernatural powers that could impact or change your life. However, by
bidding, you agree to exclusively bid on the value of the art work,
with disregard to the last two photos featured in this auction, and hold the
owners harmless in regard to them and their impact expressed or implied. Now that
we got this out of the way, one question to you, ebayers,
we want our house to be blessed after this painting has gone. Does anyone
know anyone who was qualified to do this? The size of the painting is
twenty four by thirty six inches, so it's rather large. As I have
had several questions, here are the following answers. There was no odor left
behind in the room. There were no voices or the smell of gunpowder,
no footprints or strange fluids on the wall. To deter questions in this direction,
there are no ghosts in this world, no supernatural powers. This is
just a painting, and most of these things have an explanation, in this
case, probably a Fluke lighting effect. I encourage you to bid on the
artwork and consider the life to photographs as pure entertainment, and please did not
take them into consideration when bidding, as you can tell the owners believed that
the painting was cursed. The boy and the doll and the painting moved at
night, even leaving the painting. On some nights, they set up motion
cameras and caught the boy leaving it. The link for the listing went viral
and it was viewed over thirty thousand times. Some people felt nauseous just from
looking at the pictures. Someone else fainted. Another person heard a deep and
disturbing, disembodied voice when they saw the picture. One potential buyer clicked the
link, but when the page opened, his screen went white and he could
feel he to radiating from it. Someone else tried to print the image,
but their new apps on printer mutilated every attempt. It was fine with every
other image. Another woman tried to bid on the painting, but when she
did, she felt like her throat was being tightened by an external grip.
Darren Kyle O'Neill decided to print the painting out. When he first came across
the image, he just felt drawn to it. After printing it, he
left it on a side table next two other documents that were printed with the
same printer. He then left for Italy and was gone for a month.
When he came back, his apartment was covered in green mold everything, all
of his clothes, the TV, his bed sheets, his daughter's caught all
of his suits. The paper he had printed were all green, but only
one thing was left untouched. The printed paper of the Hands resisted him.
It was perfect like the day he had printed it. There were thirty bids
for the painting and it ended up selling for one twenty five dollars. Kim
Smith, the owner of the Perception Gallery, was a lucky winner. After
he bought it, he contacted Bill and told him about the auction. Bill
was surprised by all the stories until he remembers the unlucky fate of both the
gallery owner and the art critic. They had died within a year of coming
in contact with the Hands resist Him. The painting is still with Kim Smith.
It lives in the back room of Perception Gallery in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
It stays hidden there because Kim's sons didn't want the most haunted painting to
exist inside of their house. Though Kim does bring it out when asked,
he has only shown it publicly six times. The Smith family has not experienced
anything at least not yet. When Bill is asked if he believes his painting
is haunted, he tells interviewers the same thing where to begin. Well,
have always had a connection to what Carl Jume called the collective unconscious. I
think we all do. Artists, especially visual artists, are barometers for the
currents that run through this collective. Dreams are a common experience people may have
with this anyway. My own experience is a sensitivity to place, physical geographical
place. There are memories, echoes of all the life within a place.
Maybe it's what's called channeling. When I painted The Hands Resistant in nineteen seventy
two, I use an old photo of myself at age five in the Chicago
apartment. The hands are the other lives. The glass door is that thin
veil between the waking and dreaming. The girl doll is imagining companion or guide
through this realm. Both the owner of the gallery where Hands was displayed and
the Los Angeles Times art critic who reviewed my show were dead within a year
of the show. I'm sure it was a coincidence, but some of what
I paint resonates in other people opening the inner door or basement. By the
way I still have no idea how it ended up abandoned in the building,
though I could speculate maybe part of what Bill said is true. When an
artist paints something, their memories, their lives are channeled into it. That
piece of art now holds all of that in one place. The life and
memories and a painting can manifest into something dark and alive, haunting those who
admire it. Have you ever heard of people having experiences with haunted objects?
Shoot me a message to tell me about it. This episode of Horror Story
was researched by Metal Inguera and written by Christina Lumagi. Production and hosting by
me Edwin ko Arubias. Up next, checkout Scary Story podcast for those times
when you have long drives or need something to listen to at night. They're
short scary stories to listen at free and support the show. Check out scary
Plus over at scaryplus dot com. You'll be able to listen right here the
same app and everything, just without ads. Thank you very much for listening.
Keep it scary everyone, See you soon.