My IBDP Visual Arts Exhibition on Narcolepsy

    Myriad Inquietudes

About three years ago, I moved to Fiji. Despite seemingly adapting to change well, it was inwardly very hard for me to fit in. I was experiencing a severe sleep disorder along with scary hallucinations, sleep paralysis, and lucid dreams. No matter how tired I felt, as soon as I got in bed, my mind and body uncontrollably entered this sinister dimension sensationally. I would often find myself in very dark spots which were hard to escape. It was challenging to open up: who would really believe if I told them I could see shady white smoky figures in the sea, in the sky, or pulling me upward and sucking all the air out of my mouth as I lay in bed? Nine months back, I was told that my experiences could be related to the condition known as 'narcolepsy'. 

The six artworks I decided to create for my exhibition reflect my experiences as a visual memoir of the uncanny episodes my corporeal and unembodied self underwent; since over time, my mind brainwashed itself and inculcated the idea that my experiences were not real as a result of everyone around telling me so. I wanted my exhibition works to visually preserve this significantly odd ordeal of my life. The underlying message aims to make people more aware through visual representation, like in my artwork Parasomnia, about what wars someone secretly might be fighting, and to be considerate since they are going through daily battles with their mind and risking their sanity for it. The rest of the artworks heavily revolve around ‘places’. Everything is set between the different planes of existence, mainly within the physical and astral realms. The painting Astral Travel quintessentially represents these different layers of the aura using symbolic rainbow-gradient space. In other artworks, complementary shades of blue, green and orange enhance the idea of a dream world.

Black background, orange lighting and props enhance the implied eeriness within the artworks. The setting of my exhibition was planned to inculcate the idea of out-of-body experiences that occurred in my sleep. The scenery in some of my art pieces are actually re-enactments of eerie moments recalled from the hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations I experienced that were commonly linked to specific places and triggers for e.g. the ocean and thalassophobia etc. Parasomnia is the focal center of my artworks depicting a clear notion of the ‘sleep’ theme which will automatically lead viewers' imagination in a gloomy direction for the rest of the five paintings, thus symbolizing narcolepsy. 

Title: Parasomnia

Medium: Acrylic on canvas

Size: 60x50cm

Intention: I juxtaposed the state of my physical and spiritual embodiment during parasomnia i.e. visually portray what you may not understand from a verbal description. I referred to a photograph of myself sleeping in that exact posture. The idea is based upon sleep paralysis which is a popular concept in the art world. The chain symbolizes the physical body’s immobile state. One face shows a physically calm person asleep. While the tumultuous face shows the mental state of a person experiencing parasomnia. 

Title: My Light in Darkness

Medium: Watercolor on paper

Size: 59x35cm

Intention: I chose an actual view from my bed for reference. My light in Darkness is an entendre which purposefully symbolizes the lamp as the element of comfort during an unsettling episode of parasomnia; like light would be comfort for a soul in darkness. The tiny candle’s flame is metaphorically showing the supernatural presence of djinn who are spiritual entities made of fire. Almost every object in the picture has a deeply meaningful personal connection with my narcoleptic episodes. 

Title: Sea Monsters

Medium: Watercolor and acrylic on textured paper

Size: 42x35cm

Intention: I was inspired by Susie Lovano’s thalassophobia photograph on VSCO and I incorporated it with one of my own photographs from a stay at Momi bay. Overall I chose the setting of the ocean surrounded by mountains as a perfect opportunity to inculcate thalassophobia and some other inner fears that haunt my dreams and reality . The clouds mark a ghostly figure if you can tell through the contrasted sky. The color choice symbolizes dark eeriness which is essential to the theme of the artwork. 

Title: Warning!

Medium: Watercolor and acrylic on paper

Size: 38x27cm

Intention: This painting is of a door I saw in a hotel. The aesthetics inspired me to take a photograph and later recreate it. The door symbolizes escape from worldly tensions into the dreamworld that looks beautiful from the outside, but there are unseen hazards (hence the ‘warning’ sign). The rare ability of lucid dreaming is initially seen as diverting by the dreamer but more often one does it to escape reality, it becomes an addiction that can open vulnerable doors psychologically and physiologically. 

Title: Astral Travel

Medium: Acrylic on canvas

Size: 40x40cm

Intention: This painting intends to show an optimistic side of narcolepsy. The seven rainbow shades are for the concept of ‘aura’ and seven skies based on religious esoteric beliefs. I was inspired to create a visual representation of my astral projections after looking at Instagram artist Olivia Pierog’s work on Isolation and Escapism. The queerness that the color saturation gives was meant to enhance the idea of another spiritual realm outside of the physical plane of existence.  

Title: Doorways to my Inquietude

Medium: Acrylic on canvas

Size: 20x20cm

Intention: The composition was inspired from a VSCO photograph by Faran Naseem. The infinite path indicates a series of unending problems that I face with narcolepsy and how the path won’t stop unraveling: this paints a motif for the theme title of Myriad Inquietudes. The path has countless doorways, each leading to a new cause of inquietude. The complementary color scheme tends to add gloominess within the picture. The parallel doors symbolize a universe parallel to the human world i.e. of the Djinn.