Over the last year or so, I have been experimenting with some additional features in my paintings. The magic of a Norwegian winter night is hard to capture and present, so my thought was to engage in some effects that would illustrate the atmosphere of a starry night. In risk of getting a bit tacky, I thought I ought to allow myself to indulge in some flashy effects, have some fun, and perhaps offer my audience a slight touch of extra entertainment along the way.

I purchased a couple of products from Andreas Wahl’s excellent online shop nerdebutikken.no and started experimenting with extremely strong diamond glass flakes and a powder pigment said to be the strongest glow in the dark component ever made. As you might have guessed, I was shooting for the stars.

A mixture of the pigment into some Lascaux gloss medium and a small portion of white acrylic paint was used for the stars. The diamond glass flakes were gently broken down to smaller parts in a mortar, and sprinkled over the still wet varnish at the end of the entire process.

My latest exhibition at Galleri Giga in Leirvik contained a selection of these paintings. During the opening event the works were partly shown in a muted light (and here comes the real kicker) with the artist moving a UV touch across the canvases. This rally brings across the effect of the glow in the dark pigments. After the light came back on, the reflections in the diamond glass made the night sky sparkle as you move across in front of each piece.

You might say this is a set of cheap tricks, and I’m totally aware of this. It might lack the post modernist ironic approach that may have validated the use of such means in the modern art world. However, I enjoyed the experiment, and so did the audience. I guess this was my little share of guilty pleasure.

The images I post will never be able to illustrate the concept, so I wish you can get in front of one of them at some point.