Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

A brilliantly suggestive, resonant study of human duality by a natural storyteller. ...more info on wikipedia

About the artist: Sandra Monatfrom Germany

Sandra Monat is an artist and designer living in Germany. In 2005 she launched her micro brand named herzensart, which stands for one-of-a-kind, handmade fabric art toys and paper cut illustrations. The characters that dominate her work are often inspired by history and mythology and reflect Sandra’s penchant for strange, wild guys. Vikings, Cowboys, Knights and Co. are “her men” and she likes to give them a special whimsical and humoristic charm to appeal to the child in all of us. Besides the textile works she does paper cuts that she turns into a growing collection of items, such as printed stationery, rubber stamps, woven ribbons or melamine ware.

Why this work

“Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a mystery novel about the duality in human nature. Seeking to become someone else and to separate his good side from his dark side, Dr. Jekyll, a respectable scientist starts an experiment. By drinking a special potion Jekyll transforms himself into the amoral, evil-unleashed Hyde, who even commits crimes. When Dr. Jekyll cannot control his transformations to Mr. Hyde anymore he chooses to bring his life to an end. What appeals to me most about Stevenson´s short novel is that it deals with the mysteries of human nature and psyche. I think we all have our secrets, desires or dark parts. We try to hide due to moral, religion, or social rules. But every good man also can have a little monster deep inside or as Henry Jekyll claims “all human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil”. For my illustration (hand-paper cut/digital) I tried to find a simple symbol for the respectable character on the one side and the evil hiding underneath.”