Electroluminescent Triptychs, 2017

The three triptychs on display are drawings done on architectural drafting vellum. The drawings have been made by using different tools. Technical markers and India ink were used primarily, however an airbrush was used to create the uniform background on several of the panels. In addition, various needles and scalpels were used to remove the pigment. By added and subtracting more precision can be obtained.

The drawings are backlit by a material called electroluminescence. This material is not an LED, it is a thin flexible layer of phosphor which when stimulated by a high frequency alternating current emits light. The color of the light depends on the color of the phosphor. Each of the triptychs has three panels wired together and are connected to a sensor which detects the presence of someone near the artwork.

For quite sometime I have been interested in a book called “The Dance of Death”,  composed by Hans Holbein the Younger between 1523 - 1538. The book is a series of woodblock prints was part of a late-medieval genre called Danse Macabre which focused on the universality of death. This genre can be traced back to 15th century Paris and was produced as a “memento mori”, to remind people of the fragility of their lives and how vain the glories of earthly life are, which is something I have often been addressing in my artwork.

Therefore the central panel of each triptych is a copy of one image from Holbein’s book. I made these drawings by analyzing high resolution reproductions with Photoshop and taking a lot of measurements. The key has to do with the materiality of the paper, the surface tension and the scalpel would allow me to erase the ink, because the drafting vellum does not completely absorb the ink.