The Nightmare, 2016

54.5 x 57 cm

watercolour, ink, thread, paper cutout, pencil

I used to suffer from sleep paralysis quite often when i was young. In the nightmare i often had, my arms and legs were reversed. I knew by intuition that I must cut the threads in my heart as they were making me unable to breath nor move. Meanwhile I also felt in my bones that cutting them will kill me. I came up with this situation where I am stuck in a claw machine by Gawi (believed as a ghost of sleep paralysis in korea also meaning ‘scissors’) who is in the poster as I can not get out of it by myself. I tried to express the hope through the bright colours as I know that my parents will wake me up and get me out of the nightmare.