Bliss #5, Birds in Flight

This work demonstrates the full expressive potential of Thomas Piekunka’s freed painting technique. Here, the liberated paint skins become a dense, cascading curtain of color, transforming painting from a static image into a vibrant, spatial experience. Suspended in hundreds of layered strands, the work occupies the space between painting, sculpture, and textile, challenging traditional distinctions between mediums.

The extraordinary range of color—from electric blues and vivid oranges to deep violets, emerald greens, and metallic golds—creates a visual energy that is both exuberant and immersive. While abstract in form, the work evokes associations with waterfalls, celebratory streamers, dense vegetation, or even geological strata, allowing viewers to move fluidly between representation and pure sensation.

Piekunka’s practice belongs to a broader history of artists who have expanded painting beyond the picture plane, yet his contribution is uniquely rooted in the physical liberation of paint itself. Rather than depicting movement, he allows movement to become an intrinsic part of the work’s structure, as the suspended elements respond subtly to light, air, and the viewer’s position.

The result is an artwork that celebrates material transformation and chromatic abundance. What was once bound to a surface is released into space, creating a dynamic environment where color is no longer observed from a distance but encountered as a tangible, living presence.