There is no light without dark as both need each other to exist.
Fear into fascination – embracing the shadows is a way to understand the unknown and a way to heal from the experience of their existence. Darkness, something often seen as ugly, fearsome, taboo, can perhaps be loved and accepted too. Romantic or not, we are all inevitably bonded to the shadows; one needs to know pain to know what joy is.

My thesis is a body of work that explores humans’ relation with morality and monsters with a hint of gothic romance to express the ties we have to darkness. At what point does the line blur between monster and human? Can a human be monstrous, and can a monster show humanity? Drawing inspiration from more classical works and dark romanticism, the series wishes to let the audience into a world of metaphors, a place where there is no black or white, only greyness. The illustrations work together with my poems in pairs to provide a narrative, implementing elements of mental health and queerness in the classical aesthetic.