Comparing Lights

Comparing Lights
Acrylic on canvas by Isaiah Bogdanov
2025 | 12” x 12”
In Comparing Lights, Isaiah Bogdanov invites us into a moment of quiet contemplation—where life, death, and longing occupy the same frame, but not the same direction.
On a subdued, earthen stage under a pale sky, a lone firefly floats upright in a pool of warm glow, its tiny body angled upward toward a distant star perched high above a dark, sloping mountain. Across from it lies a human skull, washed in melancholic magenta, tilted downward—not in anguish, but in final resignation. It does not look. It does not reach. It rests.
The contrast is arresting.
Where the firefly—humble, flickering, alive—gazes upward with wonder, the skull faces the ground, turned away from both the mountain and the sky. One is seeking; the other has stopped seeking. Yet both share the same space, the same horizon, the same light.
Isaiah’s composition is symbolic and deliberate: the star in the sky may appear unreachable, yet the firefly shines anyway. It offers its own light without hesitation or shame, unconcerned that it is smaller, dimmer, or closer to the earth. In contrast, the skull, rendered in soft, ghostlike magentas, becomes an echo of a life once lived—perhaps one that spent too long looking down.
“This piece is about that moment,” Isaiah notes, “when you realize you were never meant to outshine anyone else—only to shine in your own way.”
The textures are subtle but effective—gentle brushwork for the background, a near-velvet application for the skull, and a delicately luminous treatment of the firefly’s glow. The color palette, limited yet emotionally charged, leans into dusk tones: soft ochres, muted blacks, glowing whites, and that unexpected, poignant magenta that gives the skull its emotional depth.
Comparing Lights isn’t loud. It doesn’t shout its message. But it stays with you—like a line from a poem or a lesson remembered too late. It’s not just a painting about comparison; it’s a meditation on presence, and where we choose to look while we still have time to look at all.