FROM THE NIGHTMARE

Inspiration:

During the gap year, I developed insomnia. One day when I finally fell asleep, I had a memorable nightmare. In this nightmare, I was able to look directly at some of my inner fears. When I woke up, I tried to retain the experience through drawing. This is just one of the ways that I use art to heal myself as someone suffering from anxiety and a number of other personal struggles.

In this project, I used a non-linear narrative to reconstruct my nightmare. In the frame, there is a bed with a mirror on the pillow, which represents my reflections on the Lacanian gaze. On the one hand, we recognize our fears and desires by gazing at ourselves through the mirror, but the mirror also stands for the nightmare, and as Lacan states, “we reflect and shape our true self by the dream.” I use the mirror as a starting point to reconnect with my nightmares and fears.

I let the incoherent nightmare fragments extend irregularly from the frame and superimposed, masked, or cropped fragments from my nightmare. Using art therapy, I deconstructed my dream through comprehensive composition and technique, facing my fears and reconciling with the anxieties I held in my body.