The Whispering Gallery

The Whispering Gallery

Spooky, supernatural, unexplained, paranormal art The Whispering Gallery podcast explores spine-tingling and hard-to-believe spooky art stories; including cursed paintings, paintings prints of monsters, hauntings, UFOs and more. I 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 spooky 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 when visiting the Whispering Gallery!

Episodes

S8 Ep1: Midnight Mother Goose, Part 1

January 21, 2026 • 28 mins

Mother Goose is not a particular person, although some have tried to claim there was one, but a Mother Goose was a -collection- of beloved stories. 

Tonight our story takes us into a place of disquiet through dark coniferous forests with copses of fir and spruce trees. Strangely, at times these dark forests seem to bio-locate between Germany and France in Mother Goose stories and fairy tales of the Brother Grimm. Geographicall...

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S7 Ep4: WGP SPECIAL BONUS EPISODE: 3 Doxies, 3 IVDD Surgeries — One Big Rescue Family

December 2, 2025 • 10 mins
In this heartfelt Giving Tuesday bonus episode of the Whispering Gallery podcast, meet Copper, Bonzai, and Frankie — three dachshunds who faced paralysis, pain, and uncertainty, and the people who lifted them back up. These stories are real, raw, full of hope--and about dogs at Rocky Mountain Dachshund Rescue. www.rmdr.org I wanted to share more about the dogs at the rescue than I usually share in regular WGP epis...
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S7 Ep3: The Night Watch Mystery, Part 2

September 30, 2025 • 36 mins
In Part 2 of The Night Watch Mystery, we step deeper into the shadows of Rembrandt’s masterpiece. This chapter traces the strange and violent history of the painting’s attacks, explores the accusations that swirled around the militia it depicts, and considers what these stories reveal about Amsterdam in the 1600s. Alongside the canvas, we follow Rembrandt himself—his battles with loss, financial ruin, and the weight of -possib...
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S7 Ep2: The Night Watch Mystery, Part 1

July 21, 2025 • 31 mins
Step into the shadows of Rembrandt’s most famous painting. Was The Night Watch always this dark, or is something hidden beneath the varnish? In this first episode, we begin unraveling a centuries-old art mystery that’s more than meets the eye.

See the Night Watch painting by Rembrandt Van Rijn at the Rijks Museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands (Painting Name is AKA The Night Watch Militia Company of District II under the C...
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S7 Ep1: Mothman Metamorphosis: Steel & Paint, Part 2

March 10, 2025 • 65 mins
Part 2 about the Mothman legend and subsequent art. Stories about the area the legend grew up in, Point Pleasant, West Virgina. Learn about artists Frank Frazetta and Bob Roach and their iconic mothman pieces. Mothman has been identified by some as a portent to the tragic collapse of the Silver Bridge in Point Pleasant, WV.

Episode Image Source: frazettamuseum.com Frazetta Gallery Store, Frank Frazetta, 1980, Art Prin...
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S6 Ep4: Stay Spooky Phenomecon

September 30, 2024 • 11 mins
Join me for the nickel tour, an experiment with artificial intelligence (AI), using my Phenomecon 2024 report as only the Whispering Gallery can bring it. With a velvety “blended” of spiced chai latte* and the Phenomecon mantra “we believe” which is a tad more than I’m personally comfortable with. I don’t “believe” carte blanche and personally I would have been more comfortable with “the jury is still out…” and yet the green g...
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S6 Ep3: Mothman Metamorphosis: Steel & Paint, Part 1

August 29, 2024 • 18 mins
This episode offers an introduction to our next spooky art pieces about a cryptid that hails from West Virginia, has been deemed a portent who was seen between 1966 and 1967, ending after the tragic collapse of the Silver Bridge.

Episode Image Source: frazettamuseum.com Frazetta Gallery Store, Frank Frazetta, 1980, Art Print No. 118 - Mothman, painting, accessed 29, August, 2024 <https://www.frazettamuseum.com/col...
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S6 Ep2: The Clue of the Crumbling Cake Paintings

May 3, 2024 • 41 mins
Whispering Gallery Podcast

WGP: Clue of the Crumbling Cake Paintings
A still life is a category of artwork that dates back to the 1600’s. A collection of things brought together (inanimate) gathered often on a table for the artist to work from and reference. The artist can work with this grouping of items, coming back over one or more sessions to complete the drawing or painting. Nothing in the grouping changes from...
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S6 Ep1: Unreal Hollow Earth Drawings, Part 2

March 10, 2024 • 28 mins
Come with me my friends into the strange “inner world” of—one of the unreal hollow earth drawings. I decided I needed to narrow down to one drawing for our story. Captain John Cleves’s Symmes jr, (captain of the U.S. Army, starting as an Ensign in 1802, and honorably discharged 13 years later in 1815 as a captain). After that he tried working as a trader, but that didn’t work out so he embraced his theory of the Hollow Earth. ...
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    S5 Ep6: Unreal Hollow Earth Drawings, Part 1

    December 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 today! Im all researched out and can give you the downlow on ...
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    S5 Ep5: Ghosts of Legendary Labyrinths, Part 2

    August 10, 2023 • 23 mins
    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 particular.

    Alnwick castle (parts of which were founded in 1096) has a peculiar bamboo labyrinth in “Alnwick Gardens” that was created from 500 live, evergreen and yet pere...
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    S5 Ep4: Ghosts of Legendary Labyrinths, Part 1

    June 15, 2023 • 22 mins
    What would the ruins of the Palace of Knossos (nah-sohs) look like in the moonlight? An uneven grid of boxlike rooms, interrupted by darker larger forms like a midnight quilt unfolding into the night. A cascade of history—fading into silhouette, shadow and—interpretation.

    The Palace of Knossos (nah-sohs) was built on the largest island in Greece: Crete. The island has mountains and gorges, and appears to be a bit of a...
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    S5 Ep3: The Cursed Painting, Part 2

    March 29, 2023 • 20 mins
    The last episode was all about the Franklin expedition and it had me slinging facts and quotes left and right and because there were so many interesting things related, with some more removed than others to the cursed painting. When editing the audio I had to edit out a couple of times when I had run out of breath! There was simply a lot to cover and we were just skating along the surface. Whew!

    We left off with two aba...
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    S5 Ep2: The Cursed Painting, Part 1

    February 28, 2023 • 24 mins
    We’re explorers of art mysteries, unusual legends and today the story of an Arctic expedition gone terribly awry This is quite the terrifying story on it’s own and it has been turned into an AMC supernatural anthology you might have seen. ships trapped in arctic ice, lead poisoning, abandoned ships and some indications cannibalism— just a hot mess well frozen mess I mean! And then, there’s the painting…

    Art for this e...
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    S5 Ep1: Secret Recipes of Unusual Headstones

    January 31, 2023 • 25 mins
    Let’s wipe away the dusty cobwebs at the edges of our memories. Did you ever take a pencil or crayon and take a rubbing of an image? When you make a rubbing, it’s like magic seeing the reproduction of the surface appear, although you rub the crayon across the surface to get the desired reproduction. Maybe it was an embossed book or a sampler of autumn leaves showing their shapes and textures? Or maybe you know someone or have ...
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    S4 Ep8: The Proof is in the Pudding-Paintings

    December 21, 2022 • 29 mins
    Join me in the Whispering Gallery for Scandinavian jul (you-lll) card art where artists are very good at making “spirits” (ahem) bright and visible! Are home, barn and mound spirits, not spooky enough for you? Just wait for the unsettling julbocken! Join me for some of the spookier side of Jul, coming up next.

    Special FX and Music courtesy of www.freesound.org
    https://freesound.org/people/ including: DBlover, Ihaksi...
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    S4 Ep7: The Sweet Mystery of Sugar Skulls

    November 29, 2022 • 21 mins
    Sugar skulls are considered folk art and said to have come from Southern Mexico—they are part of the celebration for Día de los Muertos in English: Day of the Dead. This is not the celebration of Halloween—in Mexico. 

    The “day” of the dead is actually two days of remembering loved ones who have passed away and welcoming their spirits home. I feel like they’ve got this holiday down way better than I’ve ever celebrated ...
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    S4 Ep6: Vaporous Prophecy & Gossamer Magic, Part 2

    October 28, 2022 • 27 mins
    So who did Circe turn into pigs? What specialty of magic could have done that? Did she really live alone on an island? Find out next on the Whispering Gallery!

    In the northern hemisphere the days are growing shorter, and the air, crisp as the snap of a Halloween apple, makes our cheeks ruddy—join me to finish our two parter about two hauntingly special, and magical women. Well more than one if we’re talking about the Or...
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    S4 Ep5: Vaporous Prophecy & Gossamer Magic (Mini Episode)

    October 10, 2022 • 14 mins
    Join me for more of the mysteries of the Oracle of Delphi, including some science about the vapors, and I attempt to sort out the multiple titles being thrown around including sybil, oracle, pythia and prophetess. 

    Episode Image: Pytia, by Jacek Malczewski (1854-1929). Painting: oil on canvas (1917), height: 82.6 in; width: 43.3 in. Location: Collection National Museum in Kraków, Source/Photographer: culture.pl, sourc...
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    S4 Ep4: Vaporous Prophecy & Gossamer Magic, Part 1

    October 1, 2022 • 21 mins
    This episode (Part 1) starts out with the Oracle of Delphi (from Greece) and some of the less known things about this "individual" and what she did that warranted such fame that has crossed the centuries. Was she simply extraordinarily gifted at prophecy? Look for the Whispering Gallery podcast on Facebook and Instagram. 

    Episode Image: Pytia, by Jacek Malczewski (1854-1929). Painting: oil on canvas (1917), height: 82...
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