Dale Frank paints in a grand manner in the continual pursuit of achieving ever-greater aesthetic intensity. While his elaborate titles suggest the stream-of-consciousness thought processes associated with surrealist art, they usually have quite specific origins. This title refers to the gloomy circumstances in which the artist found himself when he was painting it, in a basement in Milan. 

The rectangular shape in the centre is the 'painting of a painting', which floats within the actual painting like a spectral after-image. The suggestion of an artwork having a life of its own embodies the paradox in Frank’s work generally, which simultaneously suggests the mystical dimension he is keen to stress while also acknowledging a certain satirical detachment.