‘Lacuna’ is a term for a gap or a long pause, and in this painting Goss construes this idea of tension through formal elements. Goss develops his compositions from photographic collages, which he makes from his own snapshots and found images. These ‘sketches’ are often absurdly surreal, combining out of scale arrangements of unrelated objects: his studio floor might double as a desert, or a birdcage for a building. He then makes watercolour studies of these before beginning his canvases. This process allows for a slippage in translation, where his time-worn subjects become reduced and distorted through multiple interpretations – the end result bears little resemblance to the original source. In Lacuna, Goss heightens this sense of disjointedness using contradictory styles and textures. The thick geometric patterns that comprise the pool are the most concrete element of the image, while the landscape itself melts away in ephemeral gestures, lost to its own abstracted reflection.