Beneath the Surface – The Story Behind Alter Ego Li – Under Deep Water

Some artworks begin with an idea. Others begin with a feeling.

Alter Ego Li – Under Deep Water began with both.

The image captures Alter Ego Li suspended beneath the water's surface. There is an almost complete stillness, yet the silence is not necessarily peaceful. Instead, it represents that peculiar moment when time seems to pause and everything familiar slips away.

The expression to be in deep water describes a situation where we have lost our footing—where certainty disappears and we are forced to navigate the unknown. It is a state that most of us experience at some point in life. Sometimes it arrives through personal change, loss or uncertainty. Sometimes it reflects something much larger than ourselves.

Water has always carried powerful symbolism. It can represent weight, isolation and vulnerability, but equally renewal, transformation and rebirth. Beneath the surface, sound is muted, movement slows and the world is experienced differently. In that altered space, fear and clarity often exist side by side.

This duality lies at the heart of the work.

While the piece can be read as an intimate reflection on the human experience, it also speaks to the wider world. We are living in a time where environmental change, rising oceans and ecological imbalance increasingly shape our collective future. The title therefore carries two meanings: the deeply personal feeling of being overwhelmed, and the unsettling reality of a planet entering waters we no longer fully understand.

Who is Alter Ego Li?

Alter Ego Li is the recurring figure at the centre of this body of work.

She originated from a photograph I took of my daughter, Li. However, she is not presented as a portrait. Through digital transformation, layering and an intentionally evolving creative process, the original photograph has been reimagined into a symbolic character.

Creating an alter ego allows the work to move beyond biography.

Li becomes less about one individual and more about shared human experience. She can represent childhood and adulthood, vulnerability and resilience, innocence and reflection. She is a figure onto whom different viewers can project their own stories, memories and emotions.

Rather than documenting reality, Alter Ego Li creates space for interpretation.

Building a Dreamlike Reality

The finished artwork is constructed from seven individual photographs that I captured myself. Through layering, digital composition and careful visual storytelling, these separate images merge into a single scene where reality and imagination coexist.

Photography remains the foundation, but the process extends beyond documentation. It is about building visual narratives that could never exist within a single frame.

The result is an image that feels both familiar and impossible—grounded in reality, yet suspended somewhere between memory, symbolism and dream.