ABSTRACT

This chapter considers the way contemporary artists are drawn to the polymorphic and mutable qualities found in fairy tales to help them unpack difficult and complex issues underpinning their existing practice. These explorations can be identified as falling into three general tendencies: artists who explicitly reference and re-create well-known fairy tales in their work, artists who draw upon the atmosphere and wonder evoked by the fairy tale without referencing any one story, and artists who draw on the aesthetic pageantry of the fairy tale yet remain largely unaware, or disengaged, from the origin of these influences in their work. This chapter looks at how these three tendencies are demonstrated through the work of eleven contemporary artists.