The Transparent Labyrinth : A Palimpsestic Field of Painting

Wang, Zan and Gere, Charlie and Quin, James and Dickens, Pip (2026) The Transparent Labyrinth : A Palimpsestic Field of Painting. PhD thesis, Lancaster University.

Text (2026ZanW_The Transparent LabyrinthPhD)
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Video (Zan Wang-transparent labyrinth documentation)
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Abstract

This practice-based research investigates what can be described as the fundamental conditions of painting: the surface. While often overlooked, the surface acts as an in- between space between the tangible world and the illusionistic space of the painting. However, across traditions, the surface has been perceived in fragmented ways such as concealment in Renaissance painting, flatness in modernist abstraction, or continuous revelation in Chinese ink painting, all in service of particular modes of visual representation. Each of these approaches illuminates only one aspect of surface perception. The research emerges from a desire to re-locate this in-betweenness, therefore considers a deceptively simple question on painting’s surface: how is the painting’s surface perceived, or encountered, as an in-between space? It seeks to explore how the surface might be reactivated to reveal its potential as a perceptual, spatial, and temporal site. An exploration of painting's surface as an in-between space in relation to spatial perception has led to a concept of painting as palimpsest—a metaphor borrowed from a layered manuscript where new writing overlays effaced earlier texts. Palimpsest becomes both a method and a perceptual model that provokes interdisciplinary encounters. To understand the palimpsestic conditions of painting, the research raises three key research questions focused on the surface transparency and spatial multiplicity, • In what ways does the painting’s surface create a state of in-betweenness that shifts perception? • How does transparent painting reconfigure the traditional figure-ground relationship? • How does painting become palimpsestic and contribute to a spatial perception theory that creates haunted, multi-sited visual fields? This thesis proposes that painting’s surface as a palimpsestic field activates a multi- temporal and multi-spatial perception. To address these questions, a series of large-scale cyanotypes on transparent fabrics were produced and installed within a walk-in labyrinth. The comparative strategies employed in this project to intertwine elements of Chinese landscape painting with Western aesthetics. The labyrinth reconstructs paintings in fluid boundaries of form and emptiness, presence and absence, enabling the viewer to experience these shifting visual fields as a sense of being in multiple places at once. The implications of this research extend to rethinking spatial perception in contemporary painting. The palimpsest, as both method and model, offers new insights into the expanded field of painting and cultural identity.