Epoxy Resin

Epoxy resin functions in Marlon Nikolai’s practice as a membrane, a space of depth and a medium of preservation. In both painting and sculpture, it enables different states between concealment and becoming visible, surface and spatial depth, present and preserved past.

Different degrees of opacity, translucency and transparency create a spectrum of visibility. Enclosed pigments, writings, traces, objects or earlier states of a work may emerge clearly, remain only partly accessible or withdraw from immediate view. The hidden therefore appears not as the simple opposite of the visible, but in different degrees of experiential accessibility. The question is not only whether something becomes visible, but how it appears.

In painting, epoxy resin expands the surface into an optical space of depth. Layers can be superimposed and enclosed without earlier states disappearing completely. In sculptural works, this depth can itself become physical space: the resin forms volume, envelope or enclosure in which materials and information are preserved, concealed or made visible within a material body.

Light is an active component of this perception. It does not merely meet a surface, but can enter the material, be guided through layers, scattered, reflected or refracted. Depending on material density, environment and viewing position, what appears accessible changes. The gaze moves between surface and depth, immediate visibility and what partially withdraws from it.

Epoxy resin also has a temporal dimension. What is enclosed is fixed and preserved. The material can function as a time capsule: gestures, pigments, writings, objects and earlier states remain materially present within later layers. The past is not erased, but can persist in the present — visible, fragmentarily accessible or hidden.

The process follows a multilayered method developed through numerous material studies. Precisely prepared surfaces and coordinated stages of work produce the characteristic relation between depth, transparency and surface effect. The specific method remains part of the studio’s internal know-how. What matters is its artistic function: the process helps determine what is enclosed, what emerges, what recedes and how light enters the material body of the work.

Epoxy resin thus becomes the material carrier of a central question in the practice: How can something be present without being fully visible or immediately accessible?