- Megan Ashman
- All Artworks
- Adumbral Penumbra
Original artwork description
Adumbral Penumbra is a layered mixed-media descent into the shadow realm—not as a place of dread, but as a strange and luminous world glimpsed through derealization, when the edges of reality soften and something unfamiliar begins to emerge in their place.
My own blue-tinted face peers into the composition from above, watchful and curious, like a visitor who has wandered too far down the path and discovered that the darkness is not what she expected. Below, a second face rests in quiet stillness, eyes lowered as though suspended between waking and dreaming. A butterfly spreads its wings between us, ancient and patient, marked with eyes of its own, while a rose blooms vividly against the blue, undisturbed by the darkness surrounding it.
Fragments of hands, coral-like forms, glitter, beads, and half-buried imagery surface and disappear beneath the paint. They feel like traces of beings that have existed in this realm for so long that no one remembers how they arrived, who they once were, or whether they ever belonged somewhere else.
This is a place where nothing is fully visible and nothing is completely hidden—a realm where the lost, the strange, and the beautiful have learned to coexist within the dark.
HIDDEN IMAGERY & SYMBOLISM
The blue face: A version of myself peering through the threshold—still tethered to the familiar world, but briefly able to witness what normally remains concealed.
The lower, downturned face: One of the realm’s long-time inhabitants—soft, peaceful, and no longer startled by the darkness around her.
The butterfly: A guardian of the threshold and a symbol of transformation. The eye-like markings on its wings suggest that while I am observing this hidden realm, it is also watching me.
The rose: Proof that beauty does not require light. It blooms fully within the shadows, untouched by the assumption that darkness must be barren or evil.
The half-buried hands, figures, coral-like forms, beads, and glitter: Remnants of other beings, memories, or former selves that wandered into this world and gradually became part of it.
The blue atmosphere: Not a symbol of menace, but the quiet, suspended feeling of a mind that has drifted somewhere it does not entirely recognize.
INTERPRETATION
This painting exists within the felt experience of derealization and depersonalization—the sensation of observing yourself and the world from a slight distance, as though you have wandered away from the familiar path and reality has become soft, fluid, and strange around you.
Yet Adumbral Penumbra resists the belief that the shadow realm is inhabited only by fear, pain, or evil. Like Alice wandering deeper into a forest as the path behind her disappears, the visitor encounters beings that are unsettling because they are unfamiliar, but also vivid, luminous, and beautiful. They have existed within the darkness for so long that they may have forgotten who they were before. Perhaps they were once people, memories, dreams, or discarded parts of the self. Now they simply remain there—glowing, drifting, and dancing within their strange hidden world.
The face above is the self as a temporary visitor, peering through an opening without fully crossing into it. The lower face, the butterfly, and the concealed figures seem to belong to the realm already. They are not waiting to be rescued, nor are they necessarily trapped. They have adapted to the darkness and become beautifully strange within it.
The painting presents the shadow self as an undiscovered ecosystem rather than an empty void. The parts of us that are buried or abandoned do not disappear. They continue to move, transform, and create their own forms of life beyond conscious awareness.
"She peers through the veil for only a moment,
into a darkness already alive without her.
There, the lost have learned to glow—
beautifully strange, dancing beyond the path home."
Materials used:
acrylic, phosphorescent paint, color shift paints, distress oxide, inks, mica powders, glass beads, iridescent and interference paints, alcohol, gesso, glitter, spray paint, archival images, coated with epoxy resin
Details:
- Mixed-media painting on Canvas
- One of a kind artwork
- Size: 40.64 x 50.8 x 2.54cm
- Ready to hang
- Signed on the back
- Style: Collage
- Subject: People and portraits
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Original artwork description
Adumbral Penumbra is a layered mixed-media descent into the shadow realm—not as a place of dread, but as a strange and luminous world glimpsed through derealization, when the edges of reality soften and something unfamiliar begins to emerge in their place.
My own blue-tinted face peers into the composition from above, watchful and curious, like a visitor who has wandered too far down the path and discovered that the darkness is not what she expected. Below, a second face rests in quiet stillness, eyes lowered as though suspended between waking and dreaming. A butterfly spreads its wings between us, ancient and patient, marked with eyes of its own, while a rose blooms vividly against the blue, undisturbed by the darkness surrounding it.
Fragments of hands, coral-like forms, glitter, beads, and half-buried imagery surface and disappear beneath the paint. They feel like traces of beings that have existed in this realm for so long that no one remembers how they arrived, who they once were, or whether they ever belonged somewhere else.
This is a place where nothing is fully visible and nothing is completely hidden—a realm where the lost, the strange, and the beautiful have learned to coexist within the dark.
HIDDEN IMAGERY & SYMBOLISM
The blue face: A version of myself peering through the threshold—still tethered to the familiar world, but briefly able to witness what normally remains concealed.
The lower, downturned face: One of the realm’s long-time inhabitants—soft, peaceful, and no longer startled by the darkness around her.
The butterfly: A guardian of the threshold and a symbol of transformation. The eye-like markings on its wings suggest that while I am observing this hidden realm, it is also watching me.
The rose: Proof that beauty does not require light. It blooms fully within the shadows, untouched by the assumption that darkness must be barren or evil.
The half-buried hands, figures, coral-like forms, beads, and glitter: Remnants of other beings, memories, or former selves that wandered into this world and gradually became part of it.
The blue atmosphere: Not a symbol of menace, but the quiet, suspended feeling of a mind that has drifted somewhere it does not entirely recognize.
INTERPRETATION
This painting exists within the felt experience of derealization and depersonalization—the sensation of observing yourself and the world from a slight distance, as though you have wandered away from the familiar path and reality has become soft, fluid, and strange around you.
Yet Adumbral Penumbra resists the belief that the shadow realm is inhabited only by fear, pain, or evil. Like Alice wandering deeper into a forest as the path behind her disappears, the visitor encounters beings that are unsettling because they are unfamiliar, but also vivid, luminous, and beautiful. They have existed within the darkness for so long that they may have forgotten who they were before. Perhaps they were once people, memories, dreams, or discarded parts of the self. Now they simply remain there—glowing, drifting, and dancing within their strange hidden world.
The face above is the self as a temporary visitor, peering through an opening without fully crossing into it. The lower face, the butterfly, and the concealed figures seem to belong to the realm already. They are not waiting to be rescued, nor are they necessarily trapped. They have adapted to the darkness and become beautifully strange within it.
The painting presents the shadow self as an undiscovered ecosystem rather than an empty void. The parts of us that are buried or abandoned do not disappear. They continue to move, transform, and create their own forms of life beyond conscious awareness.
"She peers through the veil for only a moment,
into a darkness already alive without her.
There, the lost have learned to glow—
beautifully strange, dancing beyond the path home."
Materials used:
acrylic, phosphorescent paint, color shift paints, distress oxide, inks, mica powders, glass beads, iridescent and interference paints, alcohol, gesso, glitter, spray paint, archival images, coated with epoxy resin
Details:
- Mixed-media painting on Canvas
- One of a kind artwork
- Size: 40.64 x 50.8 x 2.54cm
- Ready to hang
- Signed on the back
- Style: Collage
- Subject: People and portraits
