“The Spirit Of Lonely Places”

This is my piece titled “The Spirit of Lonely Places” which I made as part of my original horror collection during my senior years of high school from 2023 - 2024.

This drawing is a hauntingly detailed and visceral depiction of a Wendigo transformation, capturing the raw horror and agony of the metamorphosis. The character’s face, smeared with blood and dripping with unnatural black tears, suggests a struggle between humanity and the monstrous hunger overtaking them. Their hands, grotesquely enlarged and clawed, symbolize the irreversible shift from man to beast, embodying the insatiable craving that defines the Wendigo legend.

The Wendigo legend has been exposed to Native American children for decades in an effort to instill virtues like empathy, self control and to detest GREED.

The dimly lit background, with its eerie figure lurking in the shadows, adds a layer of dread, hinting that the transformation is not just physical but also supernatural—perhaps an external force guiding the change. The presence of moths near the lanterns symbolize decay, death and an attraction to the inevitable darkness consuming the figure.

Wendigo is the name for that within us that prioritises our own selfish needs and survival above all else. I think the symbol and dangers of selfishness and greed are relevant to today’s time with the common fixation of materialism and a lack of community. I wanted to illustrate that through this grotesque portrait whilst emphasizing the terror of losing yourself to a primal, cursed hunger.