Barbara Steele - The Queen of Scream Painting

I'm a self-taught artist and illustrator. I find my inspiration in the dark aesthetics, gothic, witchcraft and victorian England style. I spent my childhood in a picturesque little town at the seaside that was full of legends and myths. From a young age, I got carried away by the scary tales of the Grimm brothers, and by the stories of Poe, Lovecraft, and Ann Rice. All this has influenced my art. I paint with different art media, but my heart belongs to watercolor. For a long time I fought with myself because of watercolor. Watercolor should be light, airy, weightless. I didn’t succeed, I scolded myself, tried again and again. And only recently I finally accepted that my watercolor is different. And this is good. It’s mine, it’s about me. My watercolor is heavy, massive, dark and gloomy. It’s swampy, poisonous and haunted. There is no place for lightness and airiness in my watercolor - it's my own dark haunted world.