Powerful Drawings Show What It Feels Like To Be Lost In A Book

You’re sailing through choppy waters, head-on into a pleasantly chilly wind. You’re admiring the rippling waves, and trying not to think of your churning stomach. You look up, and suddenly, it’s time to turn the page. You’re not on a boat, but your worn-in couch, comfortably seated while setting off on a great adventure. Your pulse races, and you read on.

Graphic designer Jungho Lee ― who lives and works in Seoul, South Korea ― aims to capture the sensation of completely immersing yourself in a book, through his powerful, dreamy illustrations.

In one, a towering tome, bigger than any whale or Kraken, emerges from the ocean, rocking a nearby boat. In another, a bushel of calla lilies sprouts from inside a book, surreally bridging the gap between fiction and the world we live in. In fact, all of Jungho’s images have a graceful touch of the surreal; most, it seems, were directly inspired by Rene Magritte, whose soft and bluish palette invoked the world of dreams.

Jungho, who recently won a World Illustration Award, told The Huffington Post that his graphic design studies taught him “several visual languages such as implication and metaphor,” which he wanted to incorporate in his depictions of storytelling.

“The implied and minimal aspects of illustrations are most important to me,” Jungho said. “It makes [it so] the viewer can imagine a lot better and impart more meaning freely.”

Which, not so coincidentally, is the aim of writing and reading, too.

The images here were created for a picture book called Promenade, which explores the world of books, Jungho said. “The book is the most intimate and old media to grow a personal spiritual world. In its simple structure consisting of paper and ink we get an experience that transcends time and space. These characteristics [...] became a very attractive theme for me and provided endless inspiration.”