For the first time in the history of Fine Art Painting, a transparent painting exists! In June 2026, I submitted a formal exhibition proposal to the Museum of Modern Art in New York for a single painting: Oneiromancy, created in September 2019. My name is Thomas Piekunka, I create FREED Paintings. What follows is why this is so important.
What is FREED Painting?
In 1986 when I had my studio at the Brewery Complex in Los Angeles I asked myself if it would be possible to make a painting that had no canvas. Could a painting be created with paint alone? In 2018 I had dreams of paint strands floating in space. I had the answer to my forty-year-old question. Liberating Paint from the traditional two-dimensional application surface so it can exist in three-dimensional space is a groundbreaking paradigm shift in the field of Fine Art Painting. Paint, a substance used by painters for thousands of years is reimagined, transformed from being a subjugated object into an independent entity, expressing its own identity for the first time.
My first successful FREED painting was completed in August 2019, it is titled, Kaleidoscopic (H: 72” X W: 72”) and it is presented below.
A more recent example showing the evolution of FREED Painting is presented below. It is from my Chandelier Series. It is titled Chandelier #3, Jellyfish (54” X 24”), completed in September 2023.
Oneiromancy, The Frist Transparent Painting in History
In September of 2019 I embarked on an unimaginable journey, the creation of a transparent painting. I knew my FREED Painting process could give me access to this mysterious and never explored possibility. A transparent painting has never been considered because it is irrelevant to produce with Traditional means. Apply clear acrylic medium to a surface and it is indistinguishable from that surface, but remove the surface and what is left? Nothing less than a magical object. It is a paradox. Oneiromancy (H: 72” X W: 72”) is a three-dimensional painting, but what does that mean? There is shape and form and presence, words typically used to describe sculpture, but this a painting! And yet, how can it be a painting if it has no color? What are we looking at, something, nothing?
The Oneiromancy painting raises ontological questions. It challenges foundational definitions of Painting and requires new descriptive language. It is a completely new direction in the Painting medium. Oneiromancy is the esoteric practice of divining the future through dream interpretation. An appropriate title given that a transparent painting has been nothing more than a dream, until now. The best way to describe what Oneiromancy looks like is imagining icicles hanging from the edge of a roof. Crystal clear shapes hanging, suspended, almost levitating in space. The lack of color is almost disorienting. We are so used to seeing paintings that burst with color. That is not the intention with this painting. Here, we confront a painting unlike anything we have seen before bearing the label of “painting”.
A New Relationship Between Viewer and Painting
People jostle to stand in front of Traditional paintings in order to get the best view. That is not necessary with FREED Paintings. All FREED paintings occupy three-dimensional space, granting viewers full circumferential access. The back of a painting – historically irrelevant – becomes newly visible and conceptually active. Descriptions like “front”, “back”, “side” fall away when considering a FREED painting. This 360-degree engagement allows a viewing experience not previously available in the history of Painting.
Oneiromancy hangs 12” off the wall. You can begin by standing next to the wall on the right of the painting and examine the back of the painting. Then slowly, you can walk a semi-circle around the painting, reaching the wall on the left of the painting, bringing you back to a view of the back of the painting. All the while you feel the presence of the Paint in space. The strands dangle freely. They sway in a breeze. You can run your hands through the strands and feel their edges, their shape. You can witness their clarity. Each strand, an individual, gathered together to form a collective that is the painting titled, Oneiromancy.
Why this Matters to the History of Painting
For as long as humans have been making paintings, paint has been a slave in service to the painter, nothing more than a tool, a prisoner trapped, bound to the application surface. By eliminating the traditional two-dimensional application surface, Paint is liberated so it may exist in three-dimensional space and assert its own identity for the first time. This shift poses questions about material agency, medium specificity, and the future of Painting itself.
Even now, after living with Oneiromancy, this painting remains almost unknowable, even to me. The closest relative that I can think of is Jackson Pollock and his Drip Paintings. For that instant in time when the paint leaves his brush and flies through the air, before it hits the canvas, that moment in time IS the liberation that Oneiromancy (and all FREED paintings) embody.
The MoMA Exhibition Proposal
In June 2026 I submitted a formal proposal to the Museum of Modern Art’s curatorial staff requesting that Oneiromancy become the first FREED Painting exhibited by a major art institution. This bold act is driven by my firm belief that Oneiromancy, the first transparent painting to exist, is the most compelling and important painting of this century, and for that reason is capable of standing on its own in exhibition.
For the exhibition, I envision an empty white room except for Oneiromancy hanging opposite the entrance. The painting hangs 12” away from the wall, but that is not immediately noticeable. Viewers enter and see the painting frontally, processing its initial impact. But as they begin to walk around, they begin to realize that this painting is more than first meets the eye. Questions begin to form. Preconceptions are being challenged. Mystery unfolds. Awakening is taking place.
About Thomas Piekunka
I was born in New York, grew up in South America, and have resided in Los Angeles for most of my life. I currently live and make my art in Glendale, California. I have always been creative making lifesize cars, planes and space capsules that took me on endless childhood adventures. I had a studio at the Brewery Complex in Los Angeles from the mid-1980’s to the early 1990’s. I showed my art at several Los Angeles area galleries and even sold work. The peak was my two-person show at William Turner’s gallery in Venice, California. It was during that time that I questioned whether a painting could be made without a canvas. Could a painting made only of paint exist. Roughly forty years span the time from that question to the creation of my first FREED painting. In that time, I had a career outside of Art, ironically, that time was not lost, rather it informed what would become my FREED painting practice. In my opinion, the greatest breakthrough offered by my development of the FREED Painting process is the production of transparent paintings, the first of which was Oneiromancy completed in September 2019. It is not a stylistic variation, it is a new medium, a new paradigm. It is for that reason that I have presented my exhibition proposal to the Museum of Modern Art in New, York. MoMA continually questions what the future holds for the creative discipline of Art making. MoMA’s programs show us what lies ahead, wear our Art is taking us. Oneiromancy exudes enormous presence, and it possesses vast material agency allowing it to stand alone in exhibition. That is why I believe that MoMA is the right place for Oneiromancy to be introduced to the world.
Conclusion
Oneiromancy, and all other FREED paintings for that matter, are nothing short of a new paradigm in the field of Fine Art Painting. They aren’t intended to be like any other paintings. They are meant to challenge the very ancient practice of Painting itself. Reimagining it.
FREED Painting liberates Paint, and by doing so, it liberates the human spirit.
