From Julia Pretsfelder’s interview with artist Daniel Handal for Remezcla:
Final girls are a narrative trope in horror movies and the subjects of artist Daniel Handal’s most recent eponymous series. Though watching the final girl ultimately crush her murderous tormentor is cathartic for some of us as viewers, the 50-year-old artist transcends our campy empathy by reimagining these nostalgia-tinged staples of ‘80s slashers as empowering figures.
Portraying them in moments of richly colored composure as opposed to blood splatter, Handal conceives of his bond with these survivor-heroines as a sort of sisterhood. “I relate to the feeling of being a little scared and wondering, ‘how do I overcome this?’” he tells Remezcla of grappling with his sexuality while growing up in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, “I was thinking about how to overcome homophobia and even my own doubts about myself.”
Browse the exhibition “Final Girls and Other Work” at ClampArt
Browse the series “Final Girls” at ClampArt
Browse all of Daniel Handal’s work at ClampArt