Description and analysis of Beyond the Blackening

Beyond the Blackening is a recursive, multi-dimensional work that explores perception, reality, and transformation through a layered interplay of materials, symbolism, and philosophical inquiry. The work extends and reflects on its precursor, The Blackening, evolving from a trompe l’oeil painting into a three-dimensional installation that challenges boundaries between image and object, physical and virtual, conscious and unconscious.

The intuitive and evolving process of creating Beyond the Blackening began with the trompe l’oeil painting (Fig. 1) referencing The Blackening  (Fig. 2). Using the same technique, the painting extends into three-dimensional space with black-painted wooden batons. The physicality of these materials is central both as a literal deepening of the picture plane and as a metaphor for transcending worlds, inviting viewers into the psychic realm. This material extension embodies a traversal between dimensions, reflecting a desire to move beyond a two-dimensional representation into an embodied experience.

The process of blackening wood batons aligns with the alchemical nigredo stage, representing dissolution and darkness as the first phase of transformation. By referencing the previous work, The Blackening, I continue the theme of transformation and the iterative, recursive development of prior works. The recursive layering of works echoes the individuation process and the revelation of unconscious content to assimilate into awareness.

Beyond the Blackening uses trompe l’oeil to create spatial ambiguity, blurring two-dimensional and three-dimensional reality. Blurring this distinction destabilises assumptions about reality and representation and invites viewers to question the nature of perception. The work encourages reflection on how meaning and truth are constructed and experienced.



This questioning of perception and, by extension, the nature of reality, articulates the experience of encountering what lies beyond symbolisation and resists comprehension. This concept connects the work to Lacan's Real, the sublime, and the uncanny. Beyond the Blackening functions as a liminal space that allows glimpses of the unpresentable, inviting contemplation of the unknown and unknowable core of experience.