Painting With Light was designed to create a blocked pattern design, which would turn each shape into a pallet of colours. I liked the idea that when painting you mix your colours and decide when the colour is right to use. This artwork works with the medium of Led lights and proximity sensing when you place your hand over a shape this pulses through 30 colours and you are able to stop at the colour you decide to use.
The work can then be developed with up to three people at once working up a design and choosing an array of colours and ending up painting with light. When using the sculpture you start developing your visual knowledge of combinations of colours and how they work together.
Zen Projects, a commissioning agent in Cardiff, commissioned the project to work with young people from the Butetown area of Cardiff. The outcome was to develop an artwork that would be used in a new youth pavilion. The idea was to develop a 2D wall based artwork, which would be interactive and that would use light to absorb people into using the work, and to enhance there use of colour.
Painting With Light uses proximity sensing which enables people to change colours by bringing their hand near to the surface of the work. Proximity sensing uses electronic capacitance in the same way touch screens work on mobile phones - the electronics responds to a change of capacitance brought about by people having an earthing effect on the hidden aerials underneath the surface of the acrylic.
The colours are made from combining different levels of red, green and blue light generated by multicolour LED lights. Within the structure there are a number of small computers, which have been programmed to respond to the sensing information from the aerials and generate the differing voltages to drive the LED lights. The project was a collaboration with the artist Richard Brown which has a high knowledge of electronics and works on projects with movement.
