Michael Bosanko has a light painting style that is magical, beautiful, and instantly recognizable as his own. Michael’s latest series “Illuminating Artist” takes his style to a whole new level of excellence! Check out these incredible new images and the short interview I did with Mr. Bosanko to find out a little more about his new work…
LPP ∇ Michael your new series Illuminating Artist is awesome can you tell me a little more about your inspiration for the series?
MB ∇ There’s always been a nagging sensation in the back of my head with the terms ‘light painting’ and light graffiti’. I’ve heard it be called other things, like light sculpting, ‘bright dancing’(which makes me shudder!) and light play. Getting back to the term ‘light painting’ and ‘light graffiti’, I found myself questioning these terms, and how they really apply to light art. Over the years, my style constantly evolves, and steadily I have been treating my light tools like paint brushes, rather than ‘effect makers’. I make no secret about always finding inspiration from the environment, painters, and photographers, and recently, I’ve been bookmarking famous paintings and studying them, looking for something to jump out at me. And then it hit me; all these paintings I’ve been looking at are inspirations themselves, so I put myself up the challenge of interpreting them by using light. It was never going to be easy, but that’s why I liked it; I would be ‘painting’, for real, with lights, and it would be a welcome side project away from my usual work; something to get my teeth into.
LPP ∇ Will you be Illuminating more artist or is the series complete?
MB ∇ To date, I’ve completed four pieces, but plan a few more over the next few weeks before I draw the project to a close.
LPP ∇ Which image or section of a particular image was the most difficult?
MB ∇ So far, each image has presented its own unique challenges. For a start, everything has to be freestyle, and as usual, nothing will get edited. If I make a mistake, I start again. Simple. Technically, the Vitruvian Man was difficult. I wasn’t ‘drawing’ around a person. I had to keep my movements rigid, and completely rely on memory mapping. The Scream relied on a deep vanishing point, so perspectives had to be as near to spot on as possible. The Balloon Girl was a weird one. The original Banksy is very two dimensional. For that one, I imagined that light was an object, and tried to picture how wind would blow it. That was quite a surreal head moment for me!
LPP ∇ Which of the four you have completed is your personal favorite?
The Starry Night, on paper, looked like the easiest to do, but in reality it was a compositional nightmare. It took several attempts and a change of tact each time. It looks like a flat composition, but in reality I used a lot of three dimensional space. It was my personal favourite, and coincidentally, I did the piece under a bright moon and starry night. It seemed fitting.
LPP ∇ Thank you for answering a few questions, keep up the amazing work!
