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Capturing the Other Side of Outer Space

Updated: Dec 12, 2025

Deep-space nebula with swirling clouds of gas and dust illuminated by starlight, revealing layered color and depth across the cosmos.
A view of a distant nebula where light, depth, and motion unfold slowly—revealing the quieter, less visible side of outer space.

Space is often represented as spectacle—vast explosions of color, distant stars, and dramatic celestial events. But there is another side of space that rarely gets attention: the quiet, dimensional, and slow-moving aspects that exist beyond immediate visibility.


Martin Eichinger’s epoxy resin work focuses on that other side. Rather than illustrating space as an image, the work explores how space behaves—how light travels, how depth accumulates, and how perception changes with time and position.


Moving Beyond Illustration


Traditional depictions of space tend to rely on surface imagery. Stars are placed against darkness. Galaxies are flattened into recognizable forms. The viewer understands the subject immediately.


Eichinger’s approach resists that immediacy.


Instead of presenting space as something to look at, the work invites the viewer to look into it. Layers of epoxy resin create internal depth rather than surface detail. Color becomes suspended rather than applied.


The result is less illustrative and more experiential.


Depth as a Way of Seeing


In epoxy resin, depth is not implied—it’s built.


Layer by layer, resin allows color, texture, and light to exist at different distances from the viewer. Some elements appear close. Others recede. Nothing is fully revealed at once.


This mirrors how space itself is encountered. What we see is shaped by position, light, and time. Distance matters. Perspective matters.


Epoxy makes those variables visible.


Light as Information, Not Decoration


Light plays a central role in how these works are experienced. It doesn’t simply illuminate the surface. It activates what lies beneath it.


As light passes through layered resin, it refracts, reflects, and shifts. Subtle changes in angle or environment can alter what becomes visible.


This means the artwork never settles into a single reading. It changes depending on how it’s approached.


In this way, light becomes information—not decoration.


Why Abstraction Matters for Space-Inspired Art


Space is largely unknowable. Much of it is inferred rather than observed directly. Abstraction, then, is not a stylistic choice—it’s an honest one.


By avoiding literal representation, Eichinger’s work leaves room for uncertainty. The pieces don’t explain space. They suggest it.


This allows viewers to engage with the work intuitively rather than analytically. Meaning emerges through observation, not instruction.


Time, Patience, and Perception


These works reward slow looking.


Details emerge gradually as the eye adjusts. Depth becomes clearer with movement. What first appears minimal often reveals complexity over time.


This pacing stands in contrast to how space imagery is typically consumed—quickly, dramatically, and at a distance.


Here, space is something you spend time with.


The Other Side of Outer Space


Capturing the other side of outer space isn’t about depicting what’s out there. It’s about reflecting how we experience the unknown.


Through depth, light, and material behavior, epoxy resin becomes a way to engage with space as a process rather than a picture.


What’s revealed isn’t a destination. It’s a way of seeing.

 
 
 

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