+ About the work

This work is inspired by Henry Fuseli’s 1781 legendary painting The Nightmare, which depicts a demon sitting on the chest of a sleeping woman. This demon is an incubus; a demon in male form, who according to folklore, would try to seduce, or sexually fall upon the woman as she slept.

Yushi Li reflects: “In this photograph, I am the demon who is sitting on this man’s chest. I am neither an incubus nor a succubus (a demon in a female form), but something in between. The nudity of the subject suggests an erotic scene, while my turtleneck top and tights refuse to show any sexual seduction towards the man. The ambiguity of my position blurs the boundaries of sexual difference and expands the idea of eroticism”.

+ About the artist

Yushi Li is a Chinese artist based in London. Having recently finished her MA studies at the Royal College of Art she has won accolades for her ingeniously produced work. Li was part of the Bloomberg New Contemporaries exhibition in 2018 and received the Royal Photography Society Hundred Heroines Award.