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Artist: David Frias
Title: “Beyond the Darkness”
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Year: 2025
Beyond the Darkness presents a hooded figure suspended in a space of contained violence. Inspired by the image of a prisoner of war in Iraq and the haunting atmosphere of Francis Bacon’s Figure with Meat, this work does not depict horror—it inhabits it. The body, cloaked in red, is faceless. It is bound by electrical cables that deliver pain with every movement. There is no freedom, only tension. No expression, only endurance.
The background, dark and striated, is not empty—it is structure. The circular lights flanking the figure do not illuminate, but they do not vanish either. They are witnesses. They are possibility. And beyond the shadows, there is light. Not a promise, not a clear exit—just a suggestion. A trace of something more, something unknown, that calls to us.
Like the other works in the exhibition, this piece arises from the feeling of lost potential. The hooded figure is not merely subdued—it stands at a threshold. It can surrender, or it can transform its suffering into awareness. That tension—between death and learning, between darkness and light—is the philosophical core of the work.
Beyond the Darkness does not claim that hope exists. It claims that choice does. That even in the darkest room, there is the possibility of moving forward. And that choice—to remain in the shadows or to step toward the unknown light—is deeply human.
Artist: David Frias
Title: “Beyond the Darkness”
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Year: 2025
Beyond the Darkness presents a hooded figure suspended in a space of contained violence. Inspired by the image of a prisoner of war in Iraq and the haunting atmosphere of Francis Bacon’s Figure with Meat, this work does not depict horror—it inhabits it. The body, cloaked in red, is faceless. It is bound by electrical cables that deliver pain with every movement. There is no freedom, only tension. No expression, only endurance.
The background, dark and striated, is not empty—it is structure. The circular lights flanking the figure do not illuminate, but they do not vanish either. They are witnesses. They are possibility. And beyond the shadows, there is light. Not a promise, not a clear exit—just a suggestion. A trace of something more, something unknown, that calls to us.
Like the other works in the exhibition, this piece arises from the feeling of lost potential. The hooded figure is not merely subdued—it stands at a threshold. It can surrender, or it can transform its suffering into awareness. That tension—between death and learning, between darkness and light—is the philosophical core of the work.
Beyond the Darkness does not claim that hope exists. It claims that choice does. That even in the darkest room, there is the possibility of moving forward. And that choice—to remain in the shadows or to step toward the unknown light—is deeply human.