Blacklight Landscapes – The Story Behind

Blacklight art is like having two paintings in one!

I love paint in all its forms, acrylic, oil, flat, shiny, metallic, iridescent, interference, luminescent, etc. Not too long ago I started incorporating a variety of different paints into my paintings. It didn’t occur to me to look at these different paints in different lighting, until I walked into a gallery in Colorado Springs that featured blacklight art and I discovered, after buying a black lightbulb, that I was doing my own version of blacklight art, somewhat unintentionally.

Nature in Colorado provides a variety of seasons and occurrences that dramatically changes one’s focus. These first three paintings are of aspens which grow at higher altitudes (6500+ feet). Their brilliant yellow and fluttering leaves are a sight to behold in the fall. But, their appearance is much much different after a devastating fire at Rampart Range that swept through acres of mountainside. After only a few years, the promise of new growth appears everywhere. Sometimes you have to look for that glimmer of a new future.

The next few paintings are specifically from ‘Garden of the Gods’ where they began as ‘plein air’ paintings and later completed in the studio.

‘Tilting at Windmills’ means to engage in conflict with an imagined opponent. I thought this title appropriate as the Garden can seem so daunting in its vast and rugged terrain and mysterious spaces, depending on one’s headspace you can imagine all sorts of mythical creatures lurking about.

Remembering how I felt in the woods as a kid, always looking for shiny things, like that sparkle in a rock or the glint of the sun through the trees, would reveal the magic that I knew existed everywhere. Using blacklight paint lets me be that kid again by creating that same sense of magic.

When You’ve Lived in Colorado Springs for a while, especially if you try to paint outdoors in the summer, you learn that afternoon storms are common and move in quite quickly!

Nearby in Manitou Springs, Red Rocks Park and other small city parks one can break out the paints and enjoy a few hours of leisurely painting.

My new found love for blacklight painting brings back memories of those hippie days with blacklight posters and I’m fondly remembering Krishna on a half shell with dolphins and whales breaching all around him.

Intrigued by blacklight, I created this body of 21 paintings that combine certain traditional elements of plein-air landscape in oils and acrylics with the addition of neon paints, which come in both acrylic and oil.

It’s December of 2023. Galleries that handle blacklight art are few. Hopefully that changes. It’s also challenging to photograph blacklight art and I did my best to photograph these paintings.

I have found that bulbs for blacklight are fairly inexpensive and come in a variety of size, shapes and lumens.