Whispering sexuality abounds within this painting and its subdued palette. Historically, oysters in art evoked ancient times and symbolized Aphrodite—the goddess of love, fertility, pleasure and sex throughout antiquity and all the way into Baroque art. As for the feline creature, B. Ruby Rich said in a 1979 review of Carolee Schnemann’s work that the cat becomes “the impassive observer whose view of human sexuality is free of voyeurism and ignorant of morality.” Malaska’s compositions frequently depict women who are unafraid of displaying their emotions, desires and potential.

Speaking of the artist's work, Ashley Stull Meyers says: "Aspiring to the legacies of artists Jay DeFeo and Carolee Schneemann, Malaska’s considerations of female bodies are produced as wholly other—as occupying a space that is of their own supposed imagination and development. The figures, casually revealed more than boldly exposed, generate a surface that dimensionally supports a plane of the unreal. Their bodies are containers for not merely a biological specificity, but a defiant autonomy and nonchalant insistence on their additional value. Their mental states—aspirations, desires and prideful confidences—are evidenced in the abundance of contemporary iconography Malaska expertly positions.”