Daniel Conrad is a light-artist, painter, sound artist, teacher and writer from Baltimore County, Maryland.

Conrad’s interest in color and color perception became focused when he studied Albers’ “Interaction of Colors” in college. Conrad started to work on methods to change colors on a screen using dimmable colored light sources. The continuing goal of the work has been to use color interactions and afterimages as an active component of visual art. Conrad’s current work, which he calls “color-changing light-painting,” uses a translucent plastic screen on the front of a box about 3.5″ deep. RGB LED strips are arranged inside on the back of the box. Shaped barriers between the back and the screen separate regions to make colored areas.

Color-changes are produced by dimming LEDs in several circuits controlled with a programmable digital micro-processor. The rate of color-change can be adjusted with a knob on the side of the box, but the fastest rate does not approach strobe speed. A light-painting is intended to be an environmental companion, the way a painting can be. The barriers that shape color areas do not move, but color-changes often restructure an image in surprising ways.

Conrad’s color-changing light-paintings will be on display at the John Fonda Gallery at Theater Project May 12th – July 30th.

Works on view performance days, and by appointment Tuesday – Friday from 2 – 5pm. For appointments, contact [email protected].