Vampires have never been far from the artistic imagination. For many, they evoke the seductive control one person can have over another. Edvard Munch painted his as deeply romantic. The artist’s moody Love and Pain (made in 1895 and later nicknamed “Vampire”) depicts two figures locked in a heated embrace. The nude woman’s flaming red hair is draped over her shoulders, as she buries her face into the man’s green-tinged neck.
Ambrogio Alciati conjured similar passion for his 1900 painting The Kiss, in which a pale woman is bent backwards and ravaged by a dark-coated man with jet black hair. Later, Andy Warhol paid homage to these bloodsucking beauties, shooting a Dracula-inspired film titled Kiss in 1963, and lending his name to the 1974 schlock-horror delight Blood for Dracula (also known as Andy Warhol’s Dracula) directed by Paul Morrissey. He also reimagined the devilish count’s image in a series of bright red, neon pink and black screenprints, which imbued him with killer cheekbones.
Edvard Munch, The Vampire (Love and Pain), (1895). Private Collection. Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images
In recent years, contemporary artists have revisited and celebrated the creatures of gothic literature. Their works subvert the traditional approach, which uses monstrosity to segregate and bully, and challenge the persecution of difference in contemporary society.
While vampires could be seen as part of this realm, they hold a unique position. Their refined features, dandy-esque style, and lithe forms don’t entirely conceal their dangerous potential, but wrap it in an appealing package. Later this year, Nosferatu’s central vampire Count Orlok will be brought to life by Bill Skarsgård, an actor with chiseled model looks known for embodying chilling darkness.
Alciati, Antonio Ambrogio, The Kiss, (1900). Private Collection. Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images.
“Vampires have a seductive pull that is alluring yet also dangerous,” said artist Tracey Snelling in an interview with Artnet News. Her 3D miniature sets play into both the gore and theatricality of gothic storytelling, featuring haunted houses, hotels, and street scenes frequented by mythical beasts. “Zombies, ghosts, and monsters like Michael Myers from Halloween are flat out frightening, while a vampire can seduce and trick you.”
Snelling’s pieces mimic the architecture of gothic mansions and more contemporary buildings, highlighting this vicious figure as a timeless threat. Drawing parallels with Grace Jones’s 1986 expressive comedy horror Vamp and Blade’s blood-filled dance floor, some of her works reference the hidden spaces of underground nightlife.
“I’m building a sculpture of KitKat, the fetish club in Berlin. How many vampires are there? It seems like the perfect place for them… The Mäusebunker, a former animal research center in Berlin, is another building which I have recreated. Now abandoned, this huge concrete bunker looks like a ghost ship and could easily be home to thousands of vampires.”
Tracey Snelling, Tell me you love me (2023) short film, film still 17:39
Lindsey Mendick reveled in the romantic complexity of vampires for her 2020 Goldsmiths CCA exhibition “Will You Destroy Me?” A series of campy pieces reflected the enticement of gothic literature and flamboyance of erotic novels, featuring Mendick’s partner, fellow artist Guy J. Oliver, with vampire teeth. In one painting, he lunges towards her neck with fangs bared.
In a sculptural installation, she kneels at his feet. Mendick created this series during the pandemic while contemplating maladaptive daydreaming, considering how frightening situations can drive us towards fantasies as a way of trying to process the unknown or finding heady escape.
Tracey Snelling, House of Horrors (2013), mixed media.
“Vampires have this fascinating blend of attraction and horror,” Mendick said. “They represent the darker aspects of human nature. I think they are so alluring because they have a supernatural charm; they have this monstrous nature while also being inviting and seductive. This creates deeply romantic and hedonistic gothic fantasies. They are the perfect sexual escapism for humans.”
The series also touches on the gap that exists between fantasy and reality. Something that seems idyllic within a daydream may feel harmful in life. “The reality of the destroying element in a normal relationship is someone being too self-obsessed, or too selfish, or people not taking each other’s feelings into account,” she added.
When making the series, Mendick harked back to her idealized teenage view on Buffy’s complicated entanglement with Angel on the cult television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the central relationship in Stephanie Meyers’s Twilight saga. “I think the vampire fantasy comes from a desire to be overwhelmed by your partner. To be dominated entirely by your desire for them. In the present day, it’s the biggest escapism from the reality of relationships and the struggles we all go through.”
Installation view of Lindsey Mendick, “Will You Destroy Me?” at Goldsmiths CCA in 2020. Photo Mark Blower
While the vampire is often seen as masculine, some artists have viewed this figure through a feminine lens. In 1897, the British painter Philip Burne-Jones famously depicted a female vampire, sending a postcard of the work to Bram Stoker after he finished writing Dracula, and joking that it redressed the gender balance. In this work, the vampire is shown as a toxic seductress rather than a liberated, complicated woman. But some contemporary artists have imagined femme vampires as an icon of empowerment.
Marilyn Minter applied the gloss and glamour of lipstick and glittering beads to her erotic close-up of a fanged mouth and red-smeared teeth (Vampire, 2004). The American artist exhibited in Anat Egbi’s “Vampire::Mother” earlier this year, alongside fifteen others including Mickalene Thomas, Nadia Waheed, and Paula Rego.
Installation view, “Vampire::Mother” at Anat Ebgi, 2024. Courtesy of Anat Ebgi.
The exhibition explored overly simplified stereotypes that are imposed upon women and femmes, putting them forth instead as simultaneously sensitive, dangerous and messy. “The seductress can be a kitten, soft and cuddly; or she may be a vampire,” curator Jasmine Wahi wrote when the exhibition opened. “It is a show that embraces the mainstream tendency to navigate the world through a rigid binary framework.”
For other artists, the toxicity of the vampire is positioned as a poison that spreads through global power structures. Adam Khalil and Bayley Sweitzer’s Nosferasta, starring and co-written by Trinidadian artist and musician Oba, showed at Bristol’s Spike Island in 2022.
Adam Khalil and Bayley Sweitzer, Nosferasta (2021). Film still. Courtesy of the artists. Commissioned by Gasworks, London and Spike Island, Bristol
The film takes an anti-colonial approach to the classic tale, following Oba as he is sent to America in a slave ship, then bitten by the vampire Christopher Columbus. Oba finds himself entangled with the colonial project, until he comes across Rastafarianism and smokes the Devil’s lettuce, which frees his mind.
The story moves from the 1400s to the present day, following a newly liberated Oba struggling against the lasting dynamics of colonialism of which he has been an unwitting participant and proponent. The work brings an uncomfortable question to the fore, “How can you decolonise yourself, if it’s in your blood?”
Adam Khalil and Bayley Sweitzer, Nosferasta (2021). Installation view. Courtesy of the artists. Commissioned by Gasworks, London and Spike Island, Bristol
The vampire, then, is a symbol of covert destruction. It speaks to behaviors and attractions that get under the skin, not only draining those it preys upon, but taking over their minds. For many artists, the being that saps also corrupts, encouraging the other to act upon their worst impulses. This ancient icon of devious magnetism finds enduring relevance in the world today.
“I think one has to be on the lookout for vampires, especially in contemporary life,” said Snelling. “Maybe they don’t suck your blood, but your energy can be siphoned by those that are too charming.”