When the Eyes Become the Story
Guillermo del Toro understands that eyes can carry an entire emotional narrative. In his films, the gaze is not a passive detail—it is a portal into innocence, fear, longing, or moral complexity. His characters often have wide, unguarded eyes that appear to witness more than they can speak. This sensibility shapes the emotional architecture of my own surreal portraits. My figures rarely communicate through action or expression; their eyes do the work. Large, reflective, stylised, and slightly unreal, they behave like openings into the inner world, mirroring the cinematic logic of del Toro’s storytelling.
Wide-Eyed Innocence as Emotional Exposure
Del Toro uses wide eyes to express vulnerability without weakness. They represent openness: the willingness of the character to feel, perceive, and remain present even in the face of terror or wonder. In my portraits, the large, calm eyes echo this emotional openness. They are not frightened, but they are not fully protected either. They hold a steady awareness that feels childlike and ancient at the same time. This innocence creates emotional tension—an impression that the figure has seen something immense but is still learning how to carry it.
The Terror Hidden in a Still Gaze
Where del Toro’s eyes often capture innocence in danger, my portraits capture a quieter form of terror—one that lives beneath the surface of stillness. The eyes rarely widen or react; instead, they hold a suspended intensity. They become reflective spaces where the viewer senses an emotion not yet fully revealed. This form of terror is not dramatic but internal: an awareness, a memory, a feeling too complex to express through movement. The eyes serve as mirrors of that internal pressure, creating a subtle unease that echoes del Toro’s soft horror.
Surreal Eyes as Portals
In my work, the eyes are rarely anatomical. They are portals—flat, painted circles or elongated shapes that feel symbolic rather than realistic. Their scale is deliberate, disrupting proportional expectations to create a dreamlike intensity. These eyes behave like gateways between the internal and external world, much like del Toro’s framing of the gaze as an emotional threshold. By enlarging or stylising them, the portrait invites the viewer to step into the emotional landscape of the figure, as though the eyes are doors into the subconscious.
Colour as Emotional Temperature in the Gaze
Del Toro uses colour around the eyes to heighten atmosphere: cold blues for sorrow, warm reds for danger, earth tones for innocence. My portraits adopt this same emotional logic. A soft blue shadow becomes a space of introspection. A streak of fuchsia suggests internal tension. A luminous pink glow signals emotional vulnerability. The colour around the eyes is not makeup but mood. It infuses the gaze with emotional texture, turning the portrait’s eyes into living atmospheric fields.
Botanical Echoes Around the Eyes
Many of my works place botanical forms near or around the eyes—petals, vines, mirrored floral shapes that seem to grow from or toward the gaze. These botanicals act as emotional extensions, embodying the same symbolic weight as del Toro’s insects, keys, and labyrinth motifs. They expand the eyes into something more mythic, suggesting that the gaze does not merely observe but interacts with its surroundings. The portrait’s emotional world becomes interconnected: what the eyes see, the botanicals feel.
Innocence Complicated by Surreal Distortion
Del Toro often complicates innocence with distortion—creatures who look naïve but carry trauma, children who see what adults deny. My portraits follow a similar emotional pattern. The eyes appear calm, even pure, but the surrounding distortions—glowing edges, hybrid contours, unsettling symmetry—reveal complexity. The innocence is not erased by the strangeness; it becomes more meaningful. It suggests that purity can coexist with chaos, that softness can survive within a distorted world.
The Gaze as Emotional Anchor
In both del Toro’s films and my portrait work, the gaze becomes the emotional anchor of the narrative. It is where truth gathers, where memory settles, where horror softens into empathy. In my portraits, the eyes guide the atmosphere of the entire piece. Whether glowing, doubled, shadowed, or framed by surreal colour, they hold the intensity that defines the portrait’s mood. They act as the emotional core of the dark fairytale: a place where the viewer encounters innocence, mystery, and the quiet threat of transformation.
A Shared Vision of What Eyes Can Hold
Ultimately, the connection between del Toro’s cinematic gaze and my surreal portrait eyes lies in a shared belief: eyes can reveal the contradictions of being human. They can be innocent and terrified, open and guarded, calm and overwhelmed. By embracing the gaze as a symbolic language—one that blends tenderness, fear, and mythic depth—my portrait art continues the lineage of emotional storytelling that del Toro masters. Through these portal-like eyes, the viewer enters a world where softness and strangeness coexist, and where the gaze becomes the most honest form of magic.
