Through the camera’s time exposure process of recording that is unique to photography, I use eight-foot fluorescent tube lamps to manually draw and create light paintings, and various sized and shaped lamps to write light graffiti text-based work. These light painting and light graffiti photographs are produced on location, either outside at night or in darkened interior spaces. My practice is a time-based art form anchored in the photographic process while incorporating performance, intervention, activism, and public art.
Working at night or in the dark has its own set of parameters and drawing with light is a mysterious and intriguing type of challenge. The fact that the work is non-invasive, leaves no physical trace of having existed, is not only enticing but also fundamental for me. This work allows me to tap into the creative awareness of artistic practice and social activism. Sharing the images and videos online is a form of solidarity and protest.
Vicki DaSilva was born in 1960 in Bethesda, Maryland, USA. She began making time exposure photographs in 1980 as an undergraduate art student at Kutztown University of PA. After receiving her BFA Vicki moved to NYC. She was influenced by both postmodern art and the convergence of street and graffiti art during the birth of hip-hop. She coined the term ‘light graffiti’ in the 80s to describe the act of creating drawings for the camera on location at night using a variety of colored light bulbs to mimic spray-painted graffiti.
Vicki did an internship and later worked as an assistant for internationally acclaimed performance artist Joan Jonas. Through Jonas, she was introduced to many artists including Richard Serra, for whom she worked as a personal assistant throughout the 80s. Vicki’s work evolved during this time, and in the late 80s, she began to use four-foot and eventually eight-foot fluorescent lamps to make landscape-based light paintings in both urban and rural locations. She continues to make both light graffiti text works and abstract works using fluorescent tube lamps.
In November 2018 Vicki and Antonio relocated permanently to Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada. They have been making art and memories together there since 1988.
Exhibitions include Light Tartans at Studio 21 Fine Art Halifax (2021), The Billboard Creative 2021 L.A. Billboard Exhibition, Lumen Lineation at SL Gallery NYC (2018), Allentown X 7: Photographic Explorations at Allentown Art Museum (2017), Radical Love #FEMALELUST at The Crypt Gallery, London, UK (2017), Interference, International Light Art Project in Tunis (2016), East River Flows, NYC Art in the Parks (2015). In 2012 Vicki won the international competition Art Takes Times Square and her work was displayed on the 13 digital billboards of Times Square Arts Midnight Moment. In March 2015 during UNESCO’s International Year of Light, Vicki partnered with Oxfam in London’s Trafalgar Square to raise awareness of the Syrian conflict. Her work has been featured in individual and group shows, private and public collections, and has been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, and Paper Magazine among many others.
EXHIBITIONS
SOLO
2021 Light Tartans, Studio 21 Gallery, Halifax
2018 Lumen Lineation, SL Gallery, NYC
2016 http://www.180maiden.com/, NYC, Lobby Exhibition
2015 East River Flows, NYC Art in the Parks, NYC
2013 The Four Seasons Restaurant Lobby NYC, Woodward Gallery, NYC
2012 Times Square Arts: Midnight Moment, NYC
2011 Reverb, Able Fine Art, NYC
2008 Speed of Light, Flanders 311, Raleigh, NC
2006 Fluorescence, Art Gotham, NYC
2004 Non-Function Follows Form, Tompkins Gallery, Cedar Crest College, Allentown, PA
GROUP
2022 5 Needle 5 Wire, InFems, Thames-Side Studios, London
2021 Nocturne, Halifax, Nova Scotia
2021 Lumière Arts Festival, Sydney, Nova Scotia
2021 The Billboard Creative 2021 L.A. Billboard Exhibition
2017 Radical Love #FEMALELUST, The Crypt Gallery, London
2016-17 Equity Gallery Members Invitational, NYC
2016 Nuit Blanche, Port-au-Prince, Haiti
2016-17 Allentown X7, Allentown Art Museum, PA
2016 INTERFERENCE International Light Art Project Tunis
2015 Possible Realities Two, Grossman Gallery, Lafayette College, PA
2014 Thaw, Dorsky Gallery, LIC, NY
2013-2014 Rouge, Cheryl Hazan Gallery, NYC
2013 The Language of Painting, Lesley Heller Workspace, NYC
2013 Femalenergy 3, Woodward Gallery, NYC
2013 Lingo, Cheryl Hazan Gallery, NYC
2013 Snap! Orlando Photography Festival, FL
2013 Real Time, Artist Studios, NYC
2012 A Virtual Exhibition, Zoellner Arts Center, Lehigh University Art Galleries, PA
2011 Independence Day, Able Fine Art, Seoul
2011 Keystone Biennial, Silver Eye Center for Photography, Pittsburgh, PA
2010 The Takeover, Art Whino, Art Basel Miami Beach
2010 Back to New York, HP Garcia Gallery, NYC
2010 Escape from New York, Paterson, NJ
2009 Currents in Contemporary Photography, Flanders Art Gallery, Raleigh, NC
2008 Refracted Planes: Vicki DaSilva & Mia Yoon, Flanders Art Gallery, Raleigh, NC
2008 Darkness, Darkness, Boston Convention & Exhibition Center
2008 PHOTOGRAPHY NOW 2008' Center for Photography at Woodstock, NY
AWARDS/RECOGNITION/SPECIAL PROJECTS
2016 ArtsQuest Foundation, Linny Awards, Visual Artist of the Year
2015 International Photography Awards, Lucie Foundation, Two Honorable Mentions, Moving Image & Night Photography
2015 OxFam International, Act with Syria: Turn the Lights on for Syria, London
2013 International Photography Awards, Lucie Foundation, Three Honorable Mentions, Fine Art & Night Photography
2012 International Photography Awards, Lucie Foundation, Honorable Mention, Night Photography
2012 Art Takes Times Square international competition Solo Grand Prize Winner from 35,000 entries
2008 Hasselblad Masters '08 Semi-Finalist
2005 Allentown Art Museum, Third Place, 29th Annual Juried Show
2003 PA Council on the Arts, Visual Arts Photography Fellowship
2001 PA Council on the Arts, Visual Arts Photography Fellowship
PUBLICATIONS
Protest! A History of Social and Political Protest Graphics by Liz McQuiston, Princeton University Press, 2019
Allentown X 7: Photographic Explorations, Allentown Art Museum, Allentown, PA, 2017.
Light Art from Artificial Light: Light as a Medium in 20th and 21st Century Art, ZKM Museum for Contemporary Art, Karlsruhe, Germany, 2006.
EDUCATION
BFA, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, 1983