Beyond

"Beyond" by Peter Bogdanov
Acrylic on canvas | The Thing That Watches Differently
There are paintings that make you think.
There are paintings that make you feel.
And then there are paintings like "Beyond"—the ones that follow you.
Set against a cool, drifting blue that almost soothes at first glance, "Beyond" lures you in like calm water before the undertow. At the center floats a figure—not quite human, not quite gone—caught between dimensions, between identities. Its form is skeletal, spectral, dissolving at the edges, like it’s never fully decided to exist.
But it’s the face that stops you cold.
Because the eyes are mouths.
Not metaphorical, not poetic—literal mouths stretch open where the eye sockets should be. Not fanged or monstrous, but disturbingly human: pink, toothy, and unnervingly alive. The teeth are flat and familiar—childlike, ordinary—and somehow, that makes them even worse. Because this isn’t some beast from hell. This is something that learned how to look like us.
Each eye-mouth pulses with life, and from both, long, slick tongues slowly unspool—curling, tasting, searching. They slither lazily into the air, not in hunger but in recognition, like they know you. Like they’ve already tasted your thoughts and are licking them again to remember.
From the figure’s central mouth—its original one, its core—a third tongue snakes out, drooping downward in a slow-motion stretch. Not drooling. Not snarling. Just reaching, with the same calm certainty as a dream that refuses to end.
The cool blue of the background offers no comfort. It deepens around the figure, suggesting space—endless, silent space—and yet, you can feel it leaning forward, closer than it looks. The longer you stare, the more it feels like it’s not stuck inside the canvas at all.
Bogdanov never explained "Beyond." When pressed, he once muttered,
“It doesn’t want out. It wants in.”
And that’s the worst part.
Because it already knows where you live.
And it doesn’t need eyes to find you.