14 DAY TRIAL // Over the past couple of decades, the facades of buildings around the world have become adorned with various street drawings, ranging from stencils to graffiti and wheatpaste, which have raised critics from the communities most of the time. Thankfully, now a Welsh artist has devised a new way of creating spectacular graffiti by using nothing more than 5 colored blowtorches and a long-exposure camera. The creations look so vivid that most people think Photoshop is involved.
The technique Michael Bosanko uses is simple and complex at the same time. Basically, his entire kit is made up of various blowtorches, colored differently, and, in his case, of a Canon camera, which he sets to a long exposure time.
Then, he simply begins drawing his designs in the air with the torches. On account of the exposure time, the camera will record every single line that is drawn in front of it. Naturally, the technique best works at night, simply because the traces left behind by the body of the artist himself can be better hidden in the background.
Over the past five years, Bosanko has been working on his new technique around the clock, perfecting it and learning to visualize his models in mid-air, even though he sees nothing of them until he checks out the photos.
“I use my torches like an artist would use a paint brush. 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,” the artist says.
“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. 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,” he adds. The quality of each shot is entirely dependent on the way he moves, especially if his body comes between the objective and the lines he draws in the air.
In order to obtain various colors, he uses acetate paper, with which he covers the lenses of the blowtorches. This allows him to bring new shades and shadows in his drawings, although he admits that, at times, this is very difficult, mostly because he can't actually see what he's doing. This passion began more than 5 years ago, while Bosanko was in Greece.
“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. I then realized the beginning of my work in light art and have continued ever since,” the artist concludes.
