Restricted - World within world, 2018

This sketch was created under the concept of "World within world". The contradiction in scales between the "characters" that are featured in the sketch is an expression of being restricted by the rules of traditions and religion.

 

The gigantic hands that hold the threads connecting to the girl indicate how she is "controlled" and "manipulated" of what she can or cannot do - based on what she has been taught. Her facial expression shows obedience and "lost" because she cannot understand the choices that she was forced to make. The position of the hands - looming closely over the girl - creates a sense of suffocation and expresses how strictly she is being controlled over.

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In contrast, tiny creatures are freely floating around, which are her own thoughts and desires. They were drawn in a bizarre, inhuman-like form because, under her traditional and religious point of view, those desires are seen as wrong and sinful. The way they are clinging onto her shows how desperate she is trying to ignore those "sinful" ideas, but also wants to escape the restriction that she's trapped in, as those thoughts keep coming back into her mind.

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Although her face shows obedience, her eyes look at the man standing in her palm, who is also facing her, expressing her longing for love and affection, or even sexual desire. He was drawn in the same miniature scale because sexual desire is also considered an impure and forbidding topic that needs to be compressed. However, unlike the other miniature creatures floating and clinging around her, the man is carefully held close to her heart showing how she treasures him as if she is trying to protect him - as well as hiding such desire away - from the hands that are above her.