Gruesome Roots

Gruesome Roots illustrates original versions of fairy tales containing murder, suicide, and cannibalism. Rooted deep in our subconscious, fairy tales started off as something much different than the watered-down Disney versions that so many of us are familiar with today. I am interested in how dark and gruesome stories were told to children and adults to teach morals and to entertain.

In my work, I use one model to re-enact original versions of fairy tales. In doing so, I am referencing the idea of acting out the tales, and how as a child I would imagine myself as the main character when I was told some of these stories. This has influenced the construction of my photographs because I am using location and costuming that I imagined as a child to illustrate these stories.

I enjoy constructing images using everything that is available to me. This includes models, set design, costuming, lighting, and post-production in Adobe Photoshop. The desire to create work this way is inspired by films such as Pan’s Labyrinth, Ink, and Sleepy Hollow. By drawing influence from films that have beautiful cinematography but are dark in nature I create images that are visually pleasing at first glance but upon further inspection contain sinister content. I want viewers to comprehend the dark nature of how these tales were originally told. The fairy tales that are re-enacted in Gruesome Roots are tales that I have deconstructed in ways that I could not do as a child to gain a better understanding of how dark these tales actually are.