Vicki DaSilva is an American light painter and graffiti artist. She makes single frame time exposure photographs at night, which she terms ‘light graffiti’.
Career
DaSilva made her first deliberate text light graffiti photographs in 1980, beginning with her photograph titled Cash. She continued to make these light graffiti photographs using incandescent light bulbs and color gels throughout the 1980s. DaSilva moved to NYC in 1983 after receiving her BFA from Kutztown University of Pennsylvania. While at KU she met Keith Haring, a Kutztown, PA native. She was heavily influenced by the convergence of street and graffiti art during the birth of hip-hop that created a lasting graffiti love affair with light replacing spray paint. Her exploration of light graffiti and light painting as a multi-disciplinary, time-based art form anchored in the photographic process continues to push boundaries of intervention art. DaSilva did an internship and worked as an assistant for several years with video and 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 1980s. Her first full-time job in NYC was as photographer Gary Schneider’s first darkroom assistant. Towards the end of the 1980s, she started experimenting with 4 foot fluorescent lamps in her work by simply turning them off or on, dragging them through a space, or installing them to pulley systems, creating sheets of light. In the early 2000s she moved towards using 8 foot fluorescent lamps and eventually turned the lamp vertically and began walking with it. She continues to make both light graffiti works with compact fluorescent bulbs and light painting works using 8 foot fluorescent lamps. DaSilva came to the attention of a wider audience when she began posting documentation of her work on YouTube in 2009. The video documentation of DaSilva's image-making process has become an increasingly important part of her work as it not only allows viewers to see how the photographs are made but also allows for the performative aspect of her work to be included in the final image. In 2012 her work, Never Sorry was chosen from 35,000 entries to be displayed on a dozen billboards in Times Square, New York, for the 'Art Takes Time Square' event. Never Sorry, in tribute to Chinese artistAi Weiwei, was created using a compact fluorescent bulb with a yellow color gel, representing the idea of the 'Jasmine Revolution'. In 2016 DaSilva was awarded Visual Artist of the Year by The Linny Awards from The ArtsQuest Foundation. The Linny Awards, named after the late Marlene ‘Linny’ Fowler of Bethlehem, honor Fowler’s dedication to and support of the arts, while celebrating the extraordinary artists, arts educators, businesses and philanthropists who live and work in the Greater Lehigh Valley.
