In his Surfaces series, Vik Muniz continues exploring the space between object and meaning, in terms of the painted surface and its material presence. Memory of Oceania is based on Henri Matisse's paper collage work on the same name; Muniz begins with the traditional act of painting, which he then photographs, prints, cuts, and layers into a collage. While mirroring Matisse’s method, Muniz’s Surfaces incorporate the translation of painted surface painted surface to photograph before being cut and collaged into a complete, autonomous image. This distance between the original painted surface and the final representative object invokes both a “material gain and virtual loss” for the viewer, as their experience of a physical work of art is recontextualized by additional modes of image production and representation.