Car Modern 2011

An artist has swapped paintbrushes for torches to create a range of stunning works which are created entirely with the use of light.

Welsh artist Michael Bosanko creates the amazing light graffiti effect using only five coloured torches and by leaving his digital Canon camera on a long exposure.

The 39-year-old has spent the past five years perfecting his art which is created in a similar way to how people write their names with sparklers on Bonfire Night




Based in Cardiff, he draws most of his light art either in the empty urban night spaces of cities like Newport and his home town, or in the more desolate landscapes of the Brecon Beacons hills.

'I use my torches like an artist would use a paint brush,' says Michael 'I employ an exposure that lasts from ten seconds to one hour and then try to let my art manage to create what I had imagined.

'What I feel I am trying to convey is a sense of an aesthetically pleasing shape that clearly does not belong in that particular place or area.'





Bosanko covers the lens of an average household torches in coloured acetate paper which allows him to bring different shades of the spectrum to his work.

And he said that he gets the best results on a shoot depending on the amount of ambient light that available.

'If I am working in an urban environment like a city then there is lots of ambient light that means I have to work quickly,' he said.

'Some people have asked if I have ever used photo-shop on my work and I have to tell them that it is simply created with a torch, a camera and the canvas of the night.'




His impressive images have such an otherworldly sense about them that it is even difficult to tell they have been shot in the UK.

Bosanko said he got the inspiration for creating light graffiti while on holiday in Greece about five years ago.

'I was taking a picture of a very bright moon one evening in Greece when I noticed a swirling effect because the exposure had been left too long,' he said.

'I then realised the beginning of my work in light art and have continued ever since.'




Also an abstract artist, Bosanko has pushed his art to the point where he is now creating images that display what he calls a real sense of the unusual.

'It is more a case of making the picture looks as alien and impressive as possible,' he said.

Currently causing waves in the photographic art-world he plans to take his light graffiti to exhibitions round the country and possibly internationally.

'I like to think that people are inspired by my work and see what they want, as with all art,' Bosanko said.

'I am privileged to be able to do this kind of work.'