Voyeurism
This illustration series is inspired by the unsettling emotions brought on by nightmares. When people fall asleep, they enter a strange, often illogical world. In the state between waking and dreaming, reality and illusion begin to blur, and consciousness becomes hazy and unstable.
I drew from that fleeting moment of confusion to develop this series. Each image blends ordinary objects from real life with fantastical creatures and natural landscapes, creating a surreal, dreamlike atmosphere.
By combining the familiar with the uncanny, I aim to evoke a sense of quiet unease—where the viewer is unsure what is real, and what belongs to the realm of dreams.
At the center lies a sleeping girl, her bed half-submerged in water. Fish swim in circles around her, some even leaping onto the bed. She remains completely unaware of the growing danger that surrounds her.
The distorted perspective and quiet tension emphasize the fragility of her state—trapped between safety and threat, dream and reality.
The central figure is transitioning out of her dream state, stepping barefoot onto a wooden floor—an element that signals her return to an interior space grounded in reality.
The creature nearby is less fantastical than in previous scenes, resembling something between a human and a fish. Its more naturalistic design, along with the figure’s physical contact with the floor, suggests that the imagined world is fading, giving way to a more tangible, waking reality.
As the protagonist peers out through the window shutters, a flying monster stares back from the outside. The moment is inspired by a classic scene often found in horror novels—when someone looks through a peephole, only to realize that something on the other side is already looking in.
This mirrored gaze creates a tense atmosphere, blurring the line between observer and observed, fear and discovery.
watching carp surge to the surface in frenzied competition. Here, that ordinary memory transforms into a surreal and unsettling dream.
The figure stands atop a high-rise building, wearing a lifebuoy like a fish feeder. Below, monstrous fish wait eagerly, as if anticipating food to fall from above. The composition blends two contradictory environments—skyline and water surface—within a single frame, creating a dreamlike tension.
The visual dissonance and spatial distortion reflect the grotesque logic of dreams, where danger hides beneath the familiar, and the roles of predator and prey quietly blur.
Voyeurism is a surreal illustration series that explores the unease and disorientation brought on by nightmares.
Drawing from personal experiences, I extracted key emotional themes—bondage, fear, the unknown, and the presence of another world—and visualized them through dreamlike compositions that blur the boundary between reality and illusion.
Water becomes a symbolic element throughout the series. It represents the unknown: a realm where visibility is limited and strange creatures dwell. Fish, cold-blooded and emotionally distant, are transformed into unsettling monsters, serving as visual metaphors for hidden threats.
Across the illustrations, the viewer often adopts the role of a silent observer—or finds themselves being watched. By placing figures in vulnerable or ambiguous situations, the series reflects the fragile space between safety and danger, sleep and wakefulness, the self and the other.
