Arts Design

BEAUTIFUL LIGHTS MAKE MIND-BLOWING ART NOW

Image from Light Figures series by Janne Parviainen.

by Janne Parviainen. Part of Light Figures Series.

All photography and art use light as a medium in one form or another. But today, we’ve gathered some incredible works from three artists who have mastered light as its own spectacular art form. Check them out below.

JANNE PARVIAINEN

Finnish artist photographer Janne Parviainen paints and draws with light without the use of any technology tricks. No Photoshop. No enhanced colors or filters. Just long exposure and slight of hand.

“The idea of the art form is not to use any post production to the photo at all, all photos should be straight from the camera,” Parviainen explains. “While the camera is exposing the area of the photo can be used as a canvas by moving different lights in it, as if drawing or painting to it.”

The exposure times used vary from a few seconds to hours, depending on the desired effect. Parviainen uses colored strobes, flash lights, light toys, or tools especially engineered for light painting to create his works.

Parviainen often uses human forms in his photos, evoking ghostly light creatures and skeletons made of light. He has traced entire rooms with LED light to create topographic maps of the space. Recently, the artist has added a new level to these topographic photos by layering the light drawings with chalks, permanent markers and charcoal.

Parviainen’s light art has been featured in the National Geographic, The Guardian, Daily Mail, and Wired, among others. He has also produced works for brands such as Adobe Systems.

He is an active member of the Finnish light art collective Valopaja.

If you are interested in purchasing Parviainen’s works, check out My Modern Shop, MoArt.cn and The Light Painting Shop. And check out his books here.

TOBIAS HUTZLER

Photographer Tobias Hutzler paints with light, often as if he is a graffiti artist. His loose scribbly light lines offer welcome interruption to the landscapes in his backgrounds. Sometimes he manipulates the lights, forming them into shapes that suit his vision.

While other times he lets the lights shape themselves.

Hutzler has been into photography since he was 13. He studied photography at University of Southampton and Academy of Art University on a Fulbright scholarship. He’s been working as a professional photographer only for about 4 years.

Hutzler is interested in making hidden things visible by using light in new ways. He has brought his talents to brands like Sony, helping to visualize sound, for example.

Hutzler is also a talented filmmaker. In 2013, Time magazine debuted his short film “Balance,” which was produced with cutting-edge technology, It started as a personal project and soon went viral.

He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, TIME magazine and has been called “visionary” by AD Magazine and “one of the most exciting new artists working in photography.”

MAJA PETRIĆ

Making art out of light is a tricky thing. While light is always beautiful in many ways, capturing it and manipulating it with beauty and style sometimes involves technical specialty.

Croatian artist Maja Petrić masters both technology and creativity in a broad range of expression. She works at the interface of science, technology and art to create genius pieces and installations.

Skies, Petrić’s light installation depicting a sky and it’s ever-changing nature, consists of 7 lightboxes positioned so that they, together with the space between them, form a large scale view of an open sky that is constantly in motion.

In each box there are dynamic lights that are individually programmed to present change of daylight from sunset to sunrise, capturing the sky’s ephemeral nature.

Petrić grew up in Croatia during the violent time when Yugoslavia was blowing apart. She became preoccupied with using art to transform the traumatized sense of her surroundings. Her art is about transforming poetic experience of space through light.

Petrić holds a Doctorate in Digital Art and Experimental Media (DXARTS) from University of Washington, a Masters degree in new media art from New York University, Tisch School of the Arts, Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), and a Masters degree in journalism from University of Zagreb, Croatian Studies.

Maja Petrić’s Light Art has been exhibited at numerous prestigious galleries around the world. She received Richard Kelly Light Art Award, Thunen Lighting Awards, Doctoral Fellowship from Croatian Science Foundation, etc. Most recently she has been nominated for the 2015 International Light Art award in honor of the “International Year of Light 2015”.

Also see our previous posts featuring incredible light arts: The Art of Orange Light Now, 10 Beautiful Spark Filled Art Works Now, and New Art from Heat.

Enter your own images and ideas about Beautiful Darkness in this week’s creative Photo Competition. Open for entries now until 11:59 p.m. PT on 12.21.2014. If you are reading this after that date, check out the current BN Creative Competition, and enter!