CREATIVE PROJECT BY TOH HONG JIN (’23)
Dreaming of Pearl
Visual Art (Sketch)
An Interpretation of Pearl
Death, Mourning and Memory in Medieval Literature (YHU3345)
2021
Artist’s Remarks
This rough sketch is completed on paper in ink. It depicts the Pearl speaker’s dream manifesting, where from his state of grief and mourning he is led by his dead, angelic-like daughter to glimpse the unreachable heavenly city. This dreamscape is sketched within the confines of a pearl—grasped and held onto in the palms of the speaker in his state of dreaming, which symbolises the impossibility of reclaiming the dead (in reality) and at the same time, the speaker’s reluctance to let his daughter go.