"Lighthouse in the Labyrinth" Deep in the dark, thick trunks rise one by one, as if carving a "path" called the self Light is distant, blurring beyond the mist yet I walk on within this profound silence Even to be lost becomes a true footprint — and so I will arrive, at last, at that golden stillness ◈ Artist's Note I began by clearing a forest and laying down the branches. At first I tried to decide "which direction to go," but as the brush moved, I realized that the act of being lost itself would become the axis of this work. I kept painting the countless trunks standing side by side — each with its slender roots and small forks — overlaying them with the many diverging paths we carry inside ourselves. Deciding where to place the light was the hardest part. How do you convey the feeling that it must be somewhere far away? I shifted slightly right of center, leaving a dim, mist-risen passage, then placed a soft, dissolving warmth of yellow deep within it. That spot is both "a place you can reach" and "a place you have not yet been" — a deliberate contradiction. What I labored over most was the horizon line separating the foreground ground from the background sky. By softening it with mist, I wanted to leave behind an unsettled feeling: "How far does the real extend, and where does the illusion begin?" "Is this a footprint, or is it a shadow?" The poem holds a line — "Even to be lost / becomes a true footprint" — and though the same words return, it is not mere repetition; I wanted to draw closer to the very weight of walking forward. I narrowed the palette to yellow and black. Rather than flooding the whole canvas in golden light, only the ground glows faintly while everything else is held in deep darkness — so that even when only your feet are visible, the sense that "there is still more ahead" grows stronger. The poem's final line, "at that golden stillness," is a call toward a place not yet painted. What this work reaches for — by making you witness the landscape born from the idea that "being lost is itself the road" — is to unsettle the boundary between "continuing to walk" and "arriving." ◈ Edition This work is a limited-edition giclée print from the Mystique In Enigma series. MIE #299 ◈ Keywords Gothic / Dark Fantasy / Landscape / Dreamlike Painting / Forest Serenity / Inner Journey / Light And Darkness / Golden Peace / ConsciousnessForest / SelfDiscovery / Labyrinth / DeepPsychology