Alyson Petruncio reimagines the existential dread of childhood through splendid coloured pencils

Everybody can remember at least one Goosebumps cover that unnerved them as a child – perhaps even still. Images that come straight from adult horror films but just comic enough to be child-friendly, rendered with a dustiness that takes you back to spooky stories around a campfire. Just before you begin to believe that this type of kidcore horror is extinct, illustrator Alyson Petruncio, from the United States’ Virginia, is keeping it alive with phantasmagorial pictures of vivid childhood memories. “These moments, whether drawn from my childhood or imagined in hindsight, help me process feelings of discomfort, loneliness, and disconnection,” says Alyson. Suburban unease and existential dread are explored through coloured pencils on watercolour paper, which helps give contorted scenes of psychological chaos a strangely soft tone.

“I grew up in a place where quiet routines and surface-level harmony were seen as signs of goodness,” says Alyson. “There were strong, often unspoken ideas about how girls should act and what they should be interested in – expectations that never quite fit.” The pressure to conform drives the exploration of imaginative worlds in Alyson’s illustrations, offering absurdist escapism which evokes David Lynch’s subtly distorted suburban scenes whilst rendering Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark through the featheriness of Georgia O’Keeffe. Like the underrated flick Greener Grass or Edward Scissorhands, fairytales are created out of emotional crises and mundane American lifestyles through mutilated humans, face-breaking smiles and the uncanny valley. “Through my work, I try to revisit places where I didn’t or wouldn’t feel safe and place myself and the viewer there,” Alyson says. “Turning those moments into something cathartic and quietly powerful.”