Misunderstood Monsters

Artist Isabel Samaras asks us to look at things from the villians’ persepctive

Monsters are people, too. Misunderstood maybe, but mostly meaning well. Maybe what frightens us so much about the likes of the Wolfman, Frankenstein’s Monster and his Bride is that they are not so different from us. “They’re all kind of bad luck stories,” says artist and Super Nice Club Member Isabel Samaras, who painted the above and below portraits. “They didn’t ask to be dug up and reanimated, or bitten by a werewolf, or mummified and brought back from the dead.”

Isabel is something of a remix artist, in the most classical sense. She mines pop culture ephemera, cinema, fairy tales, golden-age television, post-modern space-age bondage scenes, and of course monster movies, and spins it all through a prism of the old masters with the marvelous and arresting paintings that result. We talked with her back on episode No. 46 of Nice Work.

They didn’t ask to be dug up and reanimated, or bitten by a werewolf, or mummified and brought back from the dead.”

Isabel Samaras

In her “Monster Ballad” series, each monster is holding an item that represents their “martyrdom” (or, the way they were killed in modern parlance). “The birds all symbolize messengers who can travel between the world of the living and the dead,” says Isabel. Her work fetches thousands of dollars at shows and auctions (The Wolfman painting, “The Song of the Owl,” has howled its way onto the secondary market), but if you are just a fan of the work and want to represent for a Super Nice artist, you can find the images printed on everything from tote bags and iPhone cases to pencil skirts here.

Of her inspiration for “The Song of Birth,” which you see that top of this email, Isabel tells us, “The ending of the Bride of Frankenstein—and all those monster movies—just broke my heart, so I had to create a happier ending for them all.”

We would be remiss if we departed this goulish plane before leaving you with this image of Morticia and Wednesday Addams as Madonna and Child. High-quality prints can be purchased directly from the artist.