A cover illustration for The Island of Dr. Moreau, one of my favorite stories by H.G. Wells.
Wells calls the novel "an exercise in youthful blasphemy." Narrated by Edward Prendick, a shipwrecked man who finds himself rescued and taken to the island home of the white-clad Doctor Moreau, he sees first hand how the doctor creates human-like beings from animals via vivisection, and witnesses their pain, birth, and discovery of belief and fear. The novel intermixes pain and cruelty, moral responsibility, human identity, and human interference with nature.
This particular cover illustrates Hyena-Swine, the main source of evil and threat to Edward Prendick's survival in the story. The question however, is it an "evil" being or an object of pity, born from madness and excruciating pain, with a natural instinct to kill? I hoped to capture the essence of its ambiguity as a predator/prey, and the madness that drove to its creation.
Photo-collage and digital media. 6.5x9.5
