The work is thoroughly modern in its palette, but the composition speaks to classic potraituer, the reclining figure emblematic of renaissance muses. Finer details may be missed during a casual viewing, however, with a little time and care, one will appreciate the textures Beven has embedded in the scene by careful layering. The question still begs what lingers in the shadows, the deep crevices of the folds in the figure’s clothing and the dark spots on the wall are all still obscured, but these little mysteries in the work are balanced by the dimensions brought out through the electric highlights.

For his graduate body of work, Beven was chosen as the recipient of the VCA Visual Art Graduate Exhibition Award, this automatically entered a piece of his into the 2025 Sorrento Art Prize, for which he was commended as a finalist.

Two years out from his VCA graduation, I spoke with Beven  about this work and his developing practice, with his solo show ‘Nightshade’ that showed at Off The Kerb Gallery late last year under his belt.

What did ‘Dark Places’ original conception look like? What comes to mind when you reflect on this work now? 

Dark Places emerged from my Honours thesis, which examined the intersection of rave culture, queerness, and the sublime. Early on, the work centred on large-scale installation—painting heightened by strobing lights and vibrating bass. Over time, my focus shifted toward immanence and bodily presence. This led me away from spectacle and toward the critical distance painting affords.

With the immense conditions of labour, making and artistic experimentation and development that occurs through something like a degree in fine art, do you find that post grad-show your motivations and rhythm of creating art has evolved at all?

I entered Honours with a strong sense that I had something to prove. I turned to installation as a way of intensifying my paintings, almost as a means of justifying them at a time when I still felt they were inadequate.

As I approached the end of my Honours year, I realised it was not installation itself that interested me so much as storytelling, and the ways in which installation can quietly speak to a narrative. 

My practice now feels less driven by ego and more grounded in personal narratives and truths. Not being able to paint full time has also reshaped my relationship to the work, slowing it down and clarifying what truly matters.

How do you think you would have approached this same concept in 2026? Have you found that the practices and aesthetics you are drawn to have changed in the period of time passed?

I don’t think I would have changed anything. This painting really represents my thinking at the time. 

I noticed, in what I could see online about your works, that they are often displayed in an irreverent fashion (on the floor or quite low on that gallery wall), with installation as a crucial focus in presenting your paintings; this particular piece laying on the floor propped up by two pillows. With Dark Places, what motivated you to include the pillows in particular?

I’ve always presented my paintings in an irreverent way. At one point, my supervisor described this approach as “anti-painting” which I really like. Early on, I think I relied on installation as a kind of crutch—I wasn’t fully confident in the paintings’ ability to stand on their own, so I would place them in the dark/on the ground almost as if to compensate.

Over time, that instinct became a deliberate way of contributing to the narrative of the work. I’m interested in asking the viewer to move their body in order to experience the painting, rather than encountering it passively.

The pillows specifically signal the bedroom: something lush, intimate, and private. The pose itself is borrowed from art history, which creates a tension between the softness and familiarity of the setting and the historical weight of the reference.

Do you still find installation and experience-making as important to your body of work when planning an exhibition? 

Installation is still a consideration, but I’m less ambitious with it now. I want the paintings themselves to speak to the experience. I see installation as a way to elevate the work, rather than as the experience in itself.

In 2023, you wrote that your practice honed in on creating experiences and evoking the ‘sublime’. Reflecting on this, how might ‘Dark Places’ from 2024 expand or deviate from this theme, and do you carry these elements into your current practice or has this shifted at all?

In 2023, my practice focused on creating immersive, multisensory experiences that aimed to evoke the sublime through intensity, thrill, and the blurring of boundaries between body, space, and medium. Dark Places expands on this interest but also marks a shift away from sensory excess toward restraint, distance, and reflection. 

Rather than overwhelming the viewer, the work uses darkness and spatial ambiguity to create a quieter, more psychological sublime, one that moves between disorientation and heightened bodily awareness and aligns with the idea of immanent transcendence. This shift also clarified the role of painting in my practice, as painting introduces critical distance and allows the sublime event to be observed, reflected upon, and recognised rather than fully inhabited. I don’t necessarily engage with the sublime in my current practice, but I’m still very interested in big feelings and painting’s capacity to evoke the same. 

You can find Zachary Beven at @zacbvn 

Sunday O’Sullivan is a writer and editor, studying her masters in writing and editing, and living in Narrm. She is interested in art and how it makes her feel.