By Cansu Waldron

BeLux Beyond is a 3D artist based in Coolum Beach, Australia, whose work invites viewers into immersive digital worlds shaped by nature, imagination, and emotion. Working within a self-created universe known as the Beyondverse, he creates surreal landscapes filled with bioluminescent forests, floating waterscapes, cosmic skies, and mysterious thresholds. Rather than functioning as standalone images, his works are designed as places to enter — environments that explore themes of resilience, transformation, and the enduring presence of light within darkness.

The Beyondverse emerged gradually through years of creating psychedelic and surreal digital art, as recurring visual motifs began to reveal a larger interconnected world. Influenced by both science fiction and Eastern philosophy, BeLux Beyond is drawn to natural environments that feel simultaneously ancient and futuristic, familiar and otherworldly. His work often reflects a belief that nature is more than a backdrop — it is alive with meaning and possibility. Through these imagined landscapes, he creates spaces that encourage reflection, offering viewers a sense of wonder, connection, and the feeling of standing on the edge of change.

We asked BeLux Beyond about his art, creative process, and inspirations.

Can you tell us about your background as a digital artist? How did you get started in this field?

My path into digital art wasn't straightforward. It came through a lot of darkness first. I grew up with this deep passion for building worlds, for creating realities that didn't exist yet. But my early adult years were rough. I was dealing with substance misuse, and at eighteen I was diagnosed with schizophrenia. It was my uncle who really pulled me back. He gave me a job at his glass-blowing studio, and something about working with molten glass, shaping something tangible and beautiful out of raw heat, reignited that creative fire in me.

From there I went on to study at SAE Institute in Brisbane, where I did my Diploma in Interactive Digital Media. 3D animation, games design, graphic design. That's when I discovered what digital tools could actually do. I realised I could build entire worlds from imagination. Everything I'd been dreaming since childhood, I finally had the means to make it real.

Can you tell me how the Beyondverse first came into existence?

It grew organically out of necessity, really. I'd been creating psychedelic, surreal digital art for years. Vibrant, cosmic landscapes, portals, figures in vast natural environments. And over time I noticed these works weren't just separate pieces. They were all pointing toward the same place. The same emotional territory. A world I kept returning to.

The Beyondverse became the name for that world. It wasn't just a collection of artworks. It was a deliberate construction of a better reality. When your inner world has been very dark, you learn to build the light externally. That's what the Beyondverse is. A place I built so others could step into it and feel less alone.

The Beyondverse is filled with bioluminescent forests, floating waterscapes, and ancient thresholds. What draws you to these kinds of surreal natural environments?

I think nature already exists at the edge of the surreal if you pay close enough attention. There's something about vast natural environments. Forests, waterfalls, cosmic skies. That makes the individual feel both small and held at the same time. That tension is interesting to me.

But I also have strong influences from Eastern philosophy and Buddhist thought, and in those traditions the natural world is never just background. It's alive with meaning. When I combine that with the sci-fi and cosmic imagery I love, you get these spaces that feel ancient and futuristic simultaneously. Portals. Thresholds. Places where something is about to shift. I think people who are going through difficult times are drawn to that sense of standing at the edge of transformation.

You describe the Beyondverse as being "built from the dark, lit from within." What does that phrase mean to you personally and creatively?

Personally, it's just the truth of my story. The Beyondverse didn't come from a comfortable, easy life. It came from psychosis, from depression, from years of real struggle. So in a very literal sense, it was built from the dark.

But what I discovered through art, and through meditation, through Buddhism, is that the light doesn't come from outside. You don't wait for circumstances to improve and then feel better. You find something within yourself that can generate warmth regardless of what's happening around you. My choice of colour, that commitment to vibrancy and luminosity, that's not decoration. That's resistance. That's a deliberate refusal to stay in the dark.

Creatively, it means every piece carries that intention. I want someone to look at a work from the Beyondverse and feel something shift. Not just aesthetically, but emotionally. Like a door opening.

Looking ahead, where do you imagine the Beyondverse evolving next? Are there new environments, stories, or ideas you're excited to explore?

There's a deepening happening that I'm genuinely excited about. I want to bring more layers into the work. More texture, more of the emotional and spiritual landscape of the human experience. That intersection of digital and natural, of technology and mindfulness, is where I want to keep pushing.

I'm also very interested in immersive and virtual spaces. The work I did early on in Sansar, building an actual gallery world with a Japanese aesthetic, a Torii gate, water features, showed me how powerful it is when someone doesn't just look at art but steps inside it. I'd love to keep exploring what that means as the technology evolves. The Beyondverse as a place you can genuinely inhabit, not just observe.

What is a profound childhood memory?

Building a model trainset with my grandfather. I didn't have the language for it at the time, but looking back now I can see exactly what was happening. That was my first world-building experience.

We'd lay out the tracks together, place the little buildings, position the trees and figures, and suddenly there was this entire world sitting on a table. A world we'd made. It had its own logic, its own geography, its own life. And I remember that feeling of standing back and looking at it. This sense of I made a place that didn't exist before.

That feeling never left me. It just migrated. From a trainset to molten glass to 3D software to the Beyondverse. The tools changed completely, but the impulse was identical. Create a reality, make it feel inhabited, make it feel real enough that someone else can step into it.

I think about my grandfather when I'm deep in a new piece sometimes. That same quiet focus. That same satisfaction when the world starts to take shape.

What is a fun fact about you?

I operate under the alias Renegade Rabbit on the Sansar virtual reality platform, which I think says something about me. There's a playfulness underneath all the cosmic and philosophical work. I don't take myself too seriously, even when the themes are heavy. A Renegade Rabbit building surreal art galleries in virtual reality feels about right.

What else fills your time when you're not creating art?

Music is a genuine parallel practice for me, not just a hobby. I've released ambient and electronic tracks. The Taoist Paradise EP, Synthie Things. They come from the same meditative space as the visual work. They share the same influences: stillness, Eastern philosophy, the atmosphere of deep space. Listening is equally important. Artists like Ishome, whose ambient techno is deeply introspective and textural, and tracks like Nocturne by Inofaith, that spoken philosophy about ideas emerging from complete silence, that really resonates with how I work.

Meditation and spending time in nature are genuinely part of the creative process for me, not separate from it. Living on the Sunshine Coast now, there's no shortage of that. Every piece I make begins with quiet reflection. The art comes out of the stillness.

Have there been any surprising or memorable responses to your work?

The review of my Sansar gallery by Inara Pey back in 2017 stays with me. She described the work as fabulously evocative, carrying rich narratives, and I remember feeling that she'd articulated something I hadn't quite been able to say about my own art. That was meaningful.

But honestly, the responses that matter most are the quiet ones. Someone who found the YouTube channel during a dark period. A collector who wrote that stepping into the work felt like entering a quiet dream. Those reach me differently. Because that's exactly what it was designed to do. To be a space for people who need one. When someone tells you it worked, that it helped, that's not something you forget.