Where Fairytales Grow Up
Fairytales were never meant only for children. Their worlds were originally built for adults—for grief, for fear, for hope, for the shadows no one wanted to name. Guillermo del Toro understands this better than almost any contemporary storyteller. His films create spaces where myth, tenderness, violence and innocence collide. When I shape my own dark surreal artwork, I follow a similar path. I build images that carry the emotional truth of childhood into the complexity of adult experience. They feel like fairytales that have learned maturity without losing their wonder.
The Child’s Eye as a Truth-Teller
One of the qualities I admire most in del Toro’s storytelling is the child’s gaze—honest, unfiltered, unafraid to see monsters as they are. In my work, I often treat botanicals, seeds and hybrid forms with that same clarity. They aren’t simply decorative. They stand in for emotions that a child would recognise before an adult could name them: fear that curls into roots, longing that glows like a seed, grief that blooms too early. This perspective allows me to paint the emotional landscape with directness, even when the imagery feels uncanny or symbolically dense.
Myth as a Vessel for Trauma
Del Toro uses myth not as escapism but as a container for difficult truths. His monsters often protect as much as they threaten. His creatures embody personal pain as clearly as they embody legend. In my dark surreal compositions, I use botanical guardians, mirrored petals and shadow-lit forms in a similar way. They hold memory. They hold tension. They hold the parts of us that grow in the dark when we’re navigating trauma. These symbols are not monsters—but they understand monsters. They speak to the places where wounds and imagination intertwine.
Darkness as an Emotional Ecosystem
Del Toro’s darkness is never empty; it is alive, textured, inhabited. It contains the past, the subconscious, the moral struggle that makes his worlds feel so human. In my art, darkness behaves much the same. It is a fertile environment where glowing accents can pulse like heartbeat, where roots behave like memory maps, where strange botanicals thrive in the soil of unspoken emotion. Darkness becomes an ecosystem of meaning, not a backdrop. It reveals what can only be seen when light is rare and carefully placed.
The Tenderness Beneath the Uncanny
What makes del Toro’s worlds unforgettable is the tenderness embedded inside their horror. Beneath the grotesque lies a softness, an empathy that feels almost sacred. I try to protect that tenderness in my artwork as well. Even when the forms look uncanny or otherworldly, they carry emotional warmth through colour, haze and intuitive lighting. A violet glow becomes a gesture of comfort. A mirrored bloom becomes a symbol of recognition. The uncanny is softened, not diluted, by emotional honesty.
Creating Symbolic Worlds Instead of Escaping Reality
Del Toro never uses fantasy to run away from reality; he uses it to tell truth from a different direction. I approach my dark surreal imagery the same way. These compositions are not meant to escape the present—they clarify it. They create symbolic worlds where emotions can be held without collapsing, where myth makes pain legible, where strangeness becomes the language of survival. My wall art is not an escape hatch; it is a lantern inside the labyrinth.
Why Del Toro Resonates in My Creative World
His work speaks to that thin boundary between childhood and adulthood, innocence and terror, magic and reality. My art grows in the same soil. Through botanical myth, shadowed atmospheres, symbolic blooming and emotional surrealism, I explore the spaces where imagination becomes a tool for healing. Del Toro’s storytelling reminds me that fairytales for adults are not about comfort—they are about truth, beauty and the courage to face what lives in the dark.
The Adult Fairytale as Emotional Mirror
In the end, both of us—each in our own medium—use myth as a mirror. We ask what happens to the inner child once the world becomes heavier. We ask how imagination survives inside trauma. We ask whether monsters protect or devour. My artwork doesn’t answer these questions, but it creates a place to feel them. It builds fairytales for adults who are still learning how to walk through their own shadows with softness.
