In "Study for Astronaut, Sunrise," geometric abstraction becomes an entry-point for Mernet Larsen's playful upheaval of the spatial conventions of representational painting. Based on an untitled El Lissitzky composition from the 1920's, central to this work is Larsen's treatment of the source-drawing's lines and abstract forms as a Rorschach: free-associative parameters for a process of gradually building out layers of geometric planes to construct figurative forms in space. The resulting study depicts a planet undergoing a phase transition with an astronaut floating in the foreground, all rendered in reverse perspective. This vertiginous space lacks any implicit horizon line or a reliable vantage point—disorienting the viewer, destabilizing "fixed" perspective and making visible the unseen, metaphysical dimensions of outer-space.