PAINTING WITH ORANGE LIGHT
Orange is a color we love every day. It can new light and fresh squeezed.
The orange light of the rising and setting sun casts magic on any landscape. Orange light affects our psyches as well.
Yet orange light has a retro vibe. Tungsten bulbs warm our rooms in a sensuous soft saffron glow that no modern bulb can match. The orange flicker of fire -- in candlelight and in hearths -- warms our bodies, hearts and souls.
So when orange light becomes an artist’s medium, it draws us in to feel the heat and share the burn of creative inspiration.
Today we are revisiting the works of 5 brilliant light artists whose mastery with orange light is at once contemporary and period.
Artist duo Jan Leonardo Wöllert and Jörg Miedza, of LAPP-PRO (aka Light Art Performance Photography) were pioneers in performance photography -- an artform in which they choreograph controlled light, moving lights through space, creating dynamic shapes and energy paths, photographing their trails, using long exposures.
Each result is a living orange light sculpture that dances to music. The artist’s light movements are generally choreographed and rehearsed prior to the exposure being taken.
A fusion of organic and techno shapes, complex light orbs are set within landscapes, some like resting orange suns….
…. Some like orange flying saucers...
LAPP-PRO compositions are created in a series of 20 single steps. The camera is mounted on a tripod with a remote control to trigger. Exposures often are over 60 minutes long. Fireworks, lightsticks, flash, and other specifically developed light tools are used.
Photographer Dan DeChiaro works with an accomplice who spins burning steel wool in an eggbeater and films the resulting orange spark trails.
He shoots with a Nikon D5000, using a Nikkor 18-200mm VR lens and exposes his shots for more than 36 seconds.
For these photos, the eggbeater was attached to a lanyard at the top of a highway overpass and shot from below.
Artist Andrew S. Gibson also uses the burning steel wool spinning technique to create his photographs. They are taken at dusk, as the landscape is lit by the blue coloured light of the fading daylight.
The light from the distant city buildings over the water echo in orange.
Gibson also writes photography eBooks for Craft & Vision. You can see his Craft & Vision eBooks here. And, Gibson writes detailed articles about the Canon EOS camera system for EOS magazine and is a staff writer for Digital Photography School.
Award-winning artist James Turrell is renowned for his mastery of creating works out of colored light and space. While he works with many colors, he does have a special way with orange.
Turrell has been working with colored light and space for over 50 years. In addition to his training as an artist, Turrell has deep training in perceptual psychology and is particularly interested in how color and light affect our minds and bodies.
“I make spaces that apprehend light for our perception, and in some ways gather it, or seem to hold it…my work is more about your seeing than it is about my seeing, although it is a product of my seeing.”
— James Turrell
Turrell is also a trained pilot and counts his time in the sky as creative experience. He has created over eighty Skyspaces, with apertures in the ceilings that are open to the sky.
As the sun moves from orange dawn to orange sunset and beyond, the colors inside the Skyspaces change and the viewer’s experience changes along with it.
Read more about Opulent Orange all this week on BeautifulNow. Including, The Most Beautiful Pumpkin Festivals to Visit Now, Hack Your Brain with Orange Light, The Grace of Orange Sunsets, 10 Super-Fast Opulent Orange Cars and Celebrate & Save These Orange Beauties. Delectable Orange Heirlooms. And check out more beautiful things happening now in BN Wellness, Impact, Nature/Science, Food, Arts/Design, and Travel, Daily Fix posts.
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