My kids are growing up in an era of feigned optimism. In every fairy tale movie or kids show they watch, even evil is goofy, and when it isn’t, it’s quickly overcome and everyone lives happily ever after. After my mom died, I found my old hardcover illustrated Grimm’s Fairy Tales from the early 80s, a book I read and re-read as a kid. I read the stories to my kids, who were stunned by the murder, depression, assault, theft, suicide, and messy endings. But they loved them, and had me read them over and over. Because these stories acknowledge the pain and suffering in the world, the power dynamics, and the unfair hierarchies, as well as the triumphs and joys life brings.
This is what I see in MOTHMEISTER‘s stunning photography — gentle beauty cloaked in darkness and decay. Their subjects are unbelievable sculpture and costume, mesmerizing masks, and bewitching taxidermy. There’s a magic in this artwork that invites you to see beyond surface pleasure into the depths of our esoteric experience here. MOTHMEISTER sells their work as prints on their Etsy shop, and you can own a whole collection of their artwork through their gorgeous book Dark & Dystopian Post-Mortem Fairy Tales. Check out some of their recent works here:
