Size different
​Pencil and correct fluid drawing on paper.

The Darkness, which took a year to create, was inspired by the Lihong’s diary (London 2020) documenting her experience of relocating to a new residence in London during the pandemic in 2020. This collection of works aims to portray the artist’s mental and physical experiences during the process of settling, most notably her sensation of familiarity and strangeness when relocating to a new residence. It depicted a sense of psychological uncertainty, and as a response to the issue of displacement.

According to Lihong, moving into a new place leaves her feeling both homely and unhomely, which can also be intensified at night. The Darkness demonstrates how the artist’s own experience of ‘home’ shifts from unfamiliar to familiar and from empty to crammed with familiar items that evoke a sense of dwelling. The artist used pencil strokes to produce a vast swath of black over the familiar household objects, obliterating whatever familiarity she had developed over the day. On paper, this ambiguity conceals something, and a sensation of uncanny emerges on the scene, defined by a sense of uncertainty and displacement between the familiar and the unfamiliar.