Name: Panel Discussion: The Art of Darkness
Start: 2025-10-07T19:00:00-05:00
Location: Hearst Center for the Arts

Throughout history has been inspired and informed by the mad or twisted mind producing morbid, melancholic and macabre results. In museums and books one finds works that haunt and horrify, mesmerize and delight and play on our innermost fears. Of dreams and nightmares; mortality and morality; depravity and destruction; and of course gods, devils and monsters.
We’re excited to present this panel featuring UNI professor/author Brooke Wonders; industrial musician Ryan Kringlen (aka Acid Dracula); artist Alissa Rindels-Walton; author/horror film afficianado Axel Kohagen; moderated by the Hearst Film Scene’s own Matthew Hundley.
The focus of this conversation will be works that haunt and horrify, mesmerize and delight and play on our innermost fears. Of dreams and nightmares; mortality and morality; depravity and destruction; and of course gods, devils and monsters. We'll discuss disturbing and often beautiful artworks that indulge our greatest fears. In this panel we'll explore whether these dark themes might also be beautiful? Can comfort be found in facing our demons? Why are we tempted by fearful imagery and the grotesque? What does this tell us about the human mind?