“Children are often told to behave, or monsters will come for them. But monsters don’t hide under the bed—they live inside our heads. And sometimes, they awaken. And win.”

This post continues the journey from my previous series, “The Mind,” and explores a darker turn into the shadows that dwell within.

The monsters. Not from fairytales, but from reality. Not from outside, but from within.

Through a series of three black-and-white acrylic paintings, created using traditional art practices and layered design concepts, this work attempts to visualise the haunting truth: we are the monsters we fear.

If you’ve followed my art, you might sense an ongoing dialogue between modern emotions and the echoes of historical art movements. I am drawn to and get inspired deeply from the dreamscapes of Dali’s Surrealism, the fractured perspectives of Picasso’s Cubism, the rawness of Early Expressionism, and the spiritual abstraction of Non-objective Abstracts.

But at the core, each of my series begins from a singular theme—this one, again, from the complexity of the human mind.

The Monsters Within

This work is not a glorification of darkness, nor a condemnation of humanity. It is a visual exploration of the hidden forces we all wrestle with. Forces that shape our choices, perceptions, and consequences.

People often speak of the world as a cruel place. But who shapes that cruelty?

History is full of actions taken under the illusion of righteousness. The witch hunts. The sanctioned violence. The moral hypocrisies that pit one kind of life as sacred and another as disposable.

Who decides what is monstrous? And what if the monster wears our face?

This art series is not meant to justify the criminal or the cruel. Rather, it is an artistic reflection on how demonic forces—rooted in fear, ego, ignorance, and pain—rise within the mind, and how easily they can win if left unchecked.

Canvas I: The Awakening of Alters

The first canvas portrays the early stages of inner monstrosity. Not yet overt, but forming.

Three humanoid figures inhabit the frame: one stands massive, distant, and monstrous, while the other two appear softer, more vulnerable. These are not three people, but three versions of one person. You can also check out my article on Multiple Personalities to learn more about it.

They represent the alters, the fractured parts of the self. The gentle, the afraid, the angry, the withdrawn. And the monster isn’t separate; it is born from the same soil. From unhealed pain. From repressed truth. This stage reveals that monstrosity begins not in action, but in emotional dissonance.

Canvas II: The Calm of Darkness

In the second canvas, the figure appears composed, almost serene. But that serenity is deceptive. It’s the quiet before destruction.

Here, the mind is split between resistance and surrender. The monster wears a human face, and the self seems oddly at peace with its descent. Like a person who has stopped fighting the storm inside and instead lets it carry them.

Religions often speak of angels and demons whispering in our ears. In this frame, those whispers aren’t from beyond. They are echoes within the same vast mind, the same psyche. And the darker voice often speaks louder, not because it is stronger, but because it is more familiar.

Canvas III: Becoming the Monster

The final canvas shows a figure that no longer contends with its alters and the me; they are gone. Absorbed. Silenced. The self has fully become what it once feared.

This is the point of no return. The point where repeated patterns, unhealed emotions, and unchecked thoughts transform into identity. The monster is no longer a visitor; it is the resident.

This piece serves as a reflection of what happens when the shadow is not acknowledged but fed. It asks: What are we nurturing in silence? What thoughts, what grief, what hate, what pain?

Because what we feed, we eventually become.

Final Thoughts on the Monsters Within

This art series is not an accusation. It’s an invitation to self-reflect.

To look within the mind’s corners where our so-called monsters hide—not to fear them, but to understand them. Because when we dare to look closely, we find that monsters are not mythical beings.

They are—choices, wounds, mirrors.

Thank you for walking through this darker space of the mind, where shadows are not just feared but seen.