When Fairytales Grow Up
Guillermo del Toro’s films reshape the fairytale into something adult, emotional, and psychologically grounded. His stories carry magic, but they never escape the weight of real human experience. Objects—keys, insects, books, labyrinths—become emotional anchors, holding grief, longing, or protection inside them. This approach deeply influences my own work. The surreal botanicals in my portraits operate like his enchanted objects: they are symbols rather than decorations, emotional metaphors that grow out of the characters’ inner landscapes.
The Botanical Object as Emotional Truth
In del Toro’s worlds, an object is never just an object. It is a vessel for memory or pain, a compass for the soul. My botanicals serve a similar purpose. A glowing petal becomes a quiet confession. A mirrored flower cluster hints at identity fractured or doubled. A twisted stem conveys tension the character cannot speak. These forms act as repositories for emotional truth, giving shape to what remains unspoken. Like del Toro’s magical items, they carry inner reality into the visible world.
Fairytale Symbolism Without Escapism
Del Toro’s fairytales are not escapist; they reveal emotional reality more clearly than realism can. They blend innocence and horror, softness and violence, dream logic and moral clarity. My surreal botanicals follow this same structure. Their colours—acid greens, soft blacks, luminous pinks—carry emotional weight rather than whimsical charm. Their shapes are beautiful yet unsettling. They belong to a fairytale world, but they describe real psychological states: desire, fear, longing, conflict, transformation. The fairytale becomes a language for truth rather than fantasy.
Flowers as Emotional Organs
In my portraits, flowers do not behave like flowers. They behave like emotional organs. A bright seed glows like a pulse, suggesting vulnerability or awakening. A flower that leans inward acts like a protective gesture. A botanical form that splits or doubles reflects a mind in transition. These floral shapes serve the same narrative function as del Toro’s enchanted creatures and objects: they communicate inner states that cannot be expressed through human anatomy alone. They turn emotion into living form.
The Darkness Inside the Bloom
Del Toro excels at revealing the softness inside darkness and the darkness inside softness. His creatures are delicate even when terrifying; his innocent characters carry shadows behind their eyes. My botanicals share this dual energy. A glowing bloom may contain a quiet threat. A gentle petal may hint at grief. A symmetrical floral shape may hold tension in its perfection. This interplay between beauty and unease creates emotional realism—the sense that the artwork’s world is magical, but the feelings inside it are absolutely true.
Colour as Fairytale Atmosphere
Del Toro’s palette—crimson, moss, ultramarine, bone-white—functions like emotional weather. My botanicals adopt a similar logic. Their colour shifts are never arbitrary. Acid green signals internal friction. Luminous mauve suggests softness resisting darkness. Neon fuchsia appears where emotion breaks through the surface. These colour signatures create an atmosphere that feels simultaneously enchanted and psychologically grounded, as if each botanical carries its own fairytale climate.
Magical Realism Rooted in Emotion
In both del Toro’s cinema and my artwork, magic emerges from the emotional state of the character. It is not imposed; it grows. My botanicals follow this principle. They unfurl when the figure’s interior world expands. They twist when the character feels divided. They glow when something deeply felt rises to the surface. The magical realism they create is intimate rather than metaphorical—it is a direct translation of feeling into form.
Fairytales for Adults, Portraits for the Inner World
Del Toro believes adulthood is not the end of the fairytale but the moment it becomes honest. His films confront mortality, desire, innocence, cruelty, and transformation with a mythic clarity that speaks to grown emotional experience. My surreal botanicals live in that same emotional territory. They tell stories not of fantasy, but of truth made symbolic: the quiet strength of sensitivity, the tension of longing, the beauty of resilience, the vulnerability of being seen. Through these botanical metaphors, my portraits become their own fairytales for adults—spaces where magic reveals rather than hides the complexity of the heart.
