The Whispering Gallery

May 02 2024 13

The Whispering Gallery Podcast artwork

Spooky, supernatural, unexplained, paranormal art The Whispering Gallery podcast explores spooky, spine-tingling and hard-to-believe art stories; including cursed paintings and gems, paintings and prints of monsters, hauntings, UFOs and more. We look at art history a little differently. Learn about the spooky side of art guided by artists from around the world, and throughout history. Suzanne Nikolaisen sparks your imagination with spine-tingling and hard-to-believe art stories that are best told after dark. Subscribe to join our community of spooky art fans! Please share an episode you love with a friend! Remember to keep your flashlight close, and your spooky art stories closer!

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S6 Ep2: The Clue of the Crumbling Cake Paintings

May 02 2024 41 mins

Hi there spooky art loving friends! Welcome to the WGP (The Whispering Gallery Podcast). I’m your docent, Suzanne Nikolaisen. Let’s begin our story tonight by following the shadows draping the gallery halls, overflowing with paranormal and strange art mysteries to reach the temporary cake exhibit. But it’s not all still-life cake paintings, gum paste flower sculpture, butterc

S6 Ep1: Unreal Hollow Earth Drawings, Part 2

Mar 09 2024 28 mins

There’s Admiral Byrd’s strange stories with a lot of ties to sci fi and politics of the time, and then the imaginings of John Symmes drawn as a kind of diagram of the workings of his “Symmes holes” and the subsequent five “liveable” or inhabitable concentric levels of his fictional version of planet earth. Was he trying to put his stake in the ice to be involved in the

S5 Ep6: Unreal Hollow Earth Drawings, Part 1

Dec 14 2023 27 mins

Welcome to the Whispering Gallery podcast! I’m Suzanne Nikolaisen and if this isn’t your first rodeo - er, time listening, you know that together we seek out the spooky, unusual and fascinating stories from the art world—to understand the art and the related “unknown” a little better, and boy—howdy, did I find another “strange” doozy of a pseudoscience story for you

S5 Ep5: Ghosts of Legendary Labyrinths, Part 2

Aug 10 2023 23 mins

Continuing our story about the labyrinth at Knossos and other labyrinths including the one in the movie The Shining. ...On the island of Britain, between the Atlantic ocean and the North Sea, lies a haunted castle. Okay, yes—technically there are probably a bunch of haunted castles on -this- island. We’re looking for Alnwick Castle in Northumberland in northern UK, in particula

S5 Ep4: Ghosts of Legendary Labyrinths, Part 1

Jun 15 2023 22 mins

So, what about the ghosts in the depths of the legendary labyrinth, in the deep dark, below the palace?—The place where Theseus and the Minotaur had their showdown? Where does myth end reality meet? Was there really a labyrinth? The Minotaur has been an easy target over time as a bad guy capable of cannibalism, taken out of context and conveniently used as a symbol of a monster o

S5 Ep3: The Cursed Painting, Part 2

Mar 29 2023 20 mins

We left off with two abandoned ships (from the Franklin expedition), no survivors and the terrible story that the officers and crew of the ships had perished in the hostile environment of the polar desert —some were never accounted for. Now we explore where the painting title came from, coming to understand Edwin Landseer and a bit about how melancholia (depression) was treated d

S5 Ep2: The Cursed Painting, Part 1

Feb 28 2023 24 mins

Before I go any farther, there is a painting of a scene of one of the ships from the Franklin expedition. The ship is deserted, polar bears are scavenging, it’s gross. We’ll get into the painting a little later on. It is this painting “Man Proposes, God Disposes” painted by Sir Edwin Landseer (known for his paintings of animals, Lions, Dogs, Stags). This painting of the pol

S5 Ep1: Secret Recipes of Unusual Headstones

Jan 31 2023 25 mins

Brooklyn NY, Logan Utah and Castor Louisiana have something in common--a small but unique, could we call it a micro trend--of recipes being engraved on headstones. The usual details are there, but something else is there too, showing these good souls (and their families) were thinking out of the – recipe box? hmmm? These are what I’m calling the Secret Recipes of Unusual Headst

S4 Ep8: The Proof is in the Pudding-Paintings

Dec 21 2022 29 mins

Gnomes are all the rage where I live. Big hats shifted down over their eyes, held up by their nose, huge beards coming down to their stomach. They’re currently “in style” so to speak as decor. Not meant to sound judgey— I’ve got a few myself, I just pulled out with our Christmas decorations. So what’s the big deal? Give me another minute. No, I can’t prove there are g

S4 Ep7: The Sweet Mystery of Sugar Skulls

Nov 28 2022 21 mins

We’ve talked sugar skulls, skull imagery, history, myth… but we’re respectful visitors to where the dead ones are remembered and invited home when the veil is thin.