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Vicki DaSilva
Vicki DaSilva is a light painting photography pioneer since 1980. Since that time, she has been making single frame time exposure photographs at night. She is credited with the term ‘light graffiti’ as well as being the first artist to make deliberate text light graffiti photographs beginning in 1980 with her photograph titled Cash. Vicki DaSilva is also the first artist to use four and eight foot fluorescent lamps with the technique beginning in 1987.

She makes single frame time exposure photographs shot at night, live on location by drawing with lamps. These images are made possible through processes of recording that are unique to photography. The execution time varies in duration from minutes to hours per photograph. Each work is a response to the here-and-now.

Using open, empty spaces as well as interior and exterior as her framework, DaSilva expands on a technique that began in France in 1889 in Étienne-Jules Marey’s scientific laboratory studying human physiology. Marey collaborated with student Georges Demeny who attached incandescent bulbs to the joints of an assistant and created the first known light painting photograph.

In 1914 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Bunker_Gilbreth,_Sr. Frank Gilbreth], along with his wife Lillian Moller Gilbreth, used small lights and the open shutter of a camera to track the motion of manufacturing and clerical workers. Man Ray was the first artist in 1935 to use light painting in his Space Writing-series. In 1949 Picasso collaborated with LIFE photographer, Gjon Mili, to create a series of light drawing photographs.

Vicki DaSilva is the first artist to dedicate her entire art career exclusively to light painting photography. She has taken the medium of light painting from the urban streets to rural landscapes, from interiors to exteriors. She renders both abstraction and text-based imagery.

Roddie’s Rock (2012) portrays tall white swivels that fill and define a beach landscape whereas Jasmine/Never Sorry (for Ai Weiwei) made in 2011 features repetitive text in reference to Ai Weiwei’s detainment in China and the documentary film by Alison Klayman. Anchored firmly in the moment, DaSilva’s art contributes to the expanding global reach that light graffiti and light painting now has in art and photography communities around the world.

By integrating the documentation of performance with photography and video, DaSilva’s most recent accolade occurred on June 18th, 2012 when she was selected as the solo grand-prize winner of Art Takes Times Square, a competition of over 35,000 artists presented by Artists Wanted in Times Square, New York City. Jasmine/Never Sorry (for Ai Weiwei) made in 2011 appeared nightly upon the light billboards of Times Square through the end of July 2012. DaSilva also seized the art moment by making the new photograph and video titled FOY (2012) in Manhattan’s most iconic site, Times Square. FOY (Fountain of Youth) stamps her signature light graffiti tag FOY into the site, captured in a photograph.

In 2009 the artist received authorization by the General Services Administration for site-specific work in New York City’s Federal Plaza to make a homage piece to Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc. In 2011 her work was featured in Reebok’s Miami Lites Up project. The Bring to Light 2011 festival in Greenpoint, Brooklyn also featured her work. She was recently commissioned for a piece by the Iranian Green Party’s whereismyvoteny.org.

DaSilva moved to NYC in 1983 after receiving her BFA from Kutztown University of PA. While at KU she met Keith Haring, a Kutztown, PA native. She was heavily influenced by the convergence of street and graffiti art during the birth of hip-hop that created a lasting graffiti love affair with light replacing spray paint. Her exploration of light graffiti and light painting as a multi-disciplinary, time-based art form anchored in the photographic process continues to push boundaries of intervention art.

DaSilva did an internship and worked as an assistant for several years with internationally acclaimed video and performance artist Joan Jonas. Through Jonas she was introduced to many historically significant artists including Richard Serra, for whom she worked as a personal assistant throughout the 80’s. Her first full time job in NYC was as photographer Gary Schneider’s first darkroom assistant.

Vicki DaSilva’s work has been featured in both solo and group exhibitions at Art Basel Miami Beach, Fountain Art Fair NYC, Able Fine Art NYC, HP Garcia Gallery NYC, Art Gotham NYC, Architectural Digest Home Design Show NYC, Center for Photography at Woodstock, NY, Flanders Art Gallery Raleigh, NC and Silver Eye Center for Photography, Pittsburgh, PA, among many others. Her work has appeared in catalogs including Light Art from Artificial Light, ZKM Museum for Contemporary Art, Karlsruhe, Germany. Vicki DaSilva is a two time PA Council on the Arts Fellowship recipient for photography. Her work is in numerous private and public collections.