The Moment Before It Becomes Art

The earliest stages of an epoxy resin piece rarely look like fine art—at least by Martin Eichinger’s standards. They look more like experiments: sometimes graceful, sometimes chaotic, and often somewhere in between.

These are the moments just before something meaningful emerges, treated with curiosity, caution, and just enough stubbornness to keep pushing into the unknown.

“This is the first time I’m trying this,” Eichinger said while spreading epoxy across a panel. “I have hopes, but no clear idea of what it’s going to do as it slowly cures.”

Epoxy resin has properties that feel at home with cosmic themes. Like space itself, it can be layered, illuminated, and manipulated in ways that mirror depth, motion, and scale

When Epoxy Begins to Behave Like a System

Epoxy has rules of its own. It levels with gravity, reacts to heat, and moves in ways that even Eichinger can’t always predict. Some pigments float, others sink; some form crystalline patterns as the resin cures. These behaviors are part of what makes epoxy so compelling when building dimensional work that doesn’t sit flat like paint.

Spray paint, for example, floats on the resin’s surface and breaks into organic patterns as layers settle. Mica powders crystallize into structures that bloom and shift depending on timing and temperature. Together, these interactions create a surface that can shift, expand, or collapse in unexpected ways.

What stands out most in these early moments is Eichinger’s honesty with the process. He doesn’t dress it up.

When a layer cures unevenly, he says exactly what he sees.

Watching one section set poorly, he shook his head and muttered, “Well, that looks like hell.” Minutes later, he was testing a cloth, considering a razor blade, and debating whether to wash the whole thing off.

This uncertainty isn’t avoided—it’s embraced. Allowing a piece to be rough, muddled, or even “bad” before it becomes something worth keeping is part of the work.

He’s completed more than a hundred of these experiments—most tucked inside boxes, and some given to curious visitors who happened to be watching at the right moment.

From Experiment to Presence

A circular epoxy resin artwork with a glowing orange core transitions outward through yellow, blue, and deep black, evoking a planetary surface or atmospheric horizon in space.

This epoxy resin piece feels like a planet caught mid-formation. Heat, light, and atmosphere layered into a single moment, somewhere between a star and a world coming into focus.

Some early attempts were once destined for practical use, even countertops. Over time, these tests evolved into compositions where transparency, depth, and motion take center stage—a shift also evident in other work exploring how light passes through multiple layers of resin.

Epoxy doesn’t just sit on the surface. It allows color, texture, and form to exist below it—sometimes several layers deep—pulling viewers inward and inviting close

observation.

The reactions inside resin may be small, but they echo larger forces that Eichinger is drawn to: turbulence, emergence, uncertainty, and formation. A tiny corner of pigment behaves like weather. A clouded pocket resembles a nebula. A slow drift of white can feel like distant atmosphere.

What ends up as a unique, two-sided translucent form often begins in these moments: pigments settling in unexpected ways, mica evolving slowly, and a quiet willingness to keep going until something remarkable emerges.