I paint with invisible glass that is exposed with a smartphone flash. I’ve never seen anyone make representative art with the material I apply to my surfaces. In the late 1960’s, contemporary American artist Mary Corse began using the same glass material I now employ to create large-scale abstract paintings. I position the glass microspheres into a geometry that your pattern-recognizing minds interpret as recognizable forms. In this way, I make physical art for the digital world.
When I work with the glass I am aiming to flatter the underlying material and give the viewer something to marvel at after the light dies down. The found wood, canvas or marble opens a conduit to material fascination to which I bow deeply.
You can see more on Instagram, but as an astute young observer pointed out, my work is best IRL. As the deeply surprising hidden images jump forth into the viewer's smartphone, they are dazzled. They pocket their device and then more closely examine the work.
You can see more of his work at lightnoise.co.
Why Lebanon?
"After 30 years of mismanagement and corruption, the people of Lebanon have thrown down the shields of their faiths and banded together to demand change. My great grandparents, Latif & Rosine, left in 1920, and now I have returned to my roots.
Now 99 years later, I am with a team of volunteers at the epicenter of the Lebanese Revolution, a protest movement that typifies the complex challenges we face around the world.
From corruption, to pollution, to religious and gender unity; Beirut is the embodiment of the modern human problems in a 7,000 year old city.
These challenges will require optimism and deep empathy to overcome. Fortunately, the generation that will solve them have already stood up for gender equality, religious freedom, and the right to individual expression in every part of the world.
THE DIASPORA
Lebanon has experienced a diasporic erosion of their population for the last 100 years, and there are now more people of Lebanese descent in places like Brazil than the homeland.
Many of these expatriates cannot return home due to political, logistical and religious obstacles.
My great grandparents, Latif & Rosine, left 99 years ago, and were never able to return…
Following World War One, they were married and received fist class passage through Ellis Island on April 3rd, 1920 as their nuptial gift.
When they arrived in Ellis Island, their last names were changed from “Bechora Bouhabib” to “Thomas,” and they opened a sandwich box outside of a coal mine in Wheeling, West Virginia, ready to make a life for themselves in the New World.
They went from sandwich box to gas station, from gas station, to drive-in movie theatre, and every one of their children became a doctor or nurse in accordance with the implacable ethic of immigrant parents of any race.
In 1975, my cousin Abdullah Bouhabib offered Rosine a spot on a diplomatic trip to Beirut. He was the US ambassador for Lebanon from the early 1983 until the 1990, and felt a sense of duty in helping his cousin return to her homeland.
Latif had already passed by then and only returned home once in 1956 when his son came for a military support mission.
A GLASS-PAINTED SYMBOL OF LOVE
I made an invisible glass mural depicting major faith symbols in the formation of the Lebanese flag.
When you take a flash photo, the red symbols on a white flag transform into the the Cedar tree of Lebanon, symbolizing our unity in this fight for change.
We told the organizers of the rally that we would take this flag and all its love letters back to Beirut, and the crowd flew like homesick birds in migration to sign their names on the canvas.
They began writing to the loved ones they left behind in their home country, and some they would never exchange air with again.
People danced, hugged each other, and cried as a waves of emotions washed through their pens.
In that moment, my path became crystal clear, I needed to return to the place my family had fled 99 years before.
I am returning to let people know they were loved, not lost. That they were heard, not forgotten. That love would find them a better way through."
Further Reading on Glass Painting and the Artist's Work
LONG FORM / CV
Light Noise (b. 1985) articulates his oeuvre as an exploration of material and form. He paints with invisible glass that is exposed with a smartphone flash. Through this process, the aim is to create physical art for the digital world. Thematically, he explores concepts of new surrealism, the structure of light and color, society via architecture, and delirious attention to modern technology over the material world. His work invites the audience to pause on our condition and critically reflect on the experience of reality through smart “pieces of glass” in our hands. Light Noise is first and foremost a storyteller: the ideas in his paintings address all viewers, ranging from an interest in depth and visual language to a curiosity for the optical qualities of two-dimensional planes.
A category of his newest work embeds hidden glass portraits in materials like wood, marble, and concrete. The images of artists and inspirational figures depicted in these pieces emerge when exposed to the mechanisms of smartphone photography and recede into the material when the light dies down. This creates a dazzling experience for his audiences: the viewer’s interaction turns the unfinished physical art into a complete digital object. To select the imagery for this body of work, Light Noise samples from his repertoire of influences and mixes them with the intention of awakening a sense of wonder in the spectator.
The striking form of visual poetry generated in Light Noise’s works has been described as “magical” and “deeply unexpected.” Created by hand for an immaterial/algorithmic dimension, his work is best experienced in person; in this instance, one witnesses the audience’s shift from staring intensely at their phones to pocketing them and examining the work with uncommon attention. The gasp of surprise in the viewer is an audible indicator of their engagement and is often followed by a flood of questions about process and intent. Stimulated observers pause and go through a typical set of emotions similar to the stages of grief, yet enriched by a jubilant fascination.
Another aspect of Light Noise’s current expression is a deep study of the nature of light and color in the form of gradients. These elegant works, often on realized on canvas or glass panel, explore the contingent nature of color and perception considered by most conventional, and even mundane. The profound simplicity of the work encourages viewers to examine the nature of light and question the variability of visual perception and a universal tendency to assume unanimity.
Light Noise collaborates with Siena Canales to map her grapheme-color synesthetic perception: she perceives colors as both letters and numbers in an ineffable three-dimensional experience. Light Noise’s application of color and refractive glass, combined with Siena’s synesthetic ontology, enables both artists to create an alphanumerical language of color. The resulting kaleidoscopic patina is distributed across space as a constellation of shades coalescing in a written story of the subtle and infinite.
Light Noise originates from rust belt cities of Detroit and Lansing, Michigan and created his first piece in October 1991. Obsessed with the beauty and mechanism of his older sister’s new clarinet, he snuck into her room while she was napping and took the clarinet to the dining room where he slowly assembled the pieces just as he had seen her do. He then spent the next few hours carefully sketching the clarinet while his artist mother shoed everyone away to prevent distraction. He was 6 years old.
Throughout his life he has followed many passions and pursuits; after following his father into the hotel business he got involved in the New York startup scene and, after assisting the sale of the company, he began to travel and expand his expression in digital and watercolor work. In 2014, he began working with glass microspheres after discovering the material on a construction site near his home in New York.
After years of traveling and creation, he completed his first large-scale work in Lisbon in collaboration with an artisanal wood crafter, Mircea Anghel, of Cabana Studio in 2017. To deepen his artistic resonance, Light Noise worked with artists on 4 continents before returning to New York City to create his invisible-glass artwork on a more permanent basis.
In April of 2019, Light Noise was awarded the prestigious Foundation for Arts & Blockchain grant. This grant was awarded bases on the artists deep innovative use of glass technology to make a bridge between the physical and digital world at Brooklyn's Pioneer Works.
In the summer of 2019, he participated in Facebook's Artists in Residency Program (FBAIR) in New York. The residency culminated in creating a 25-meter glass and light installation in Facebook's new Frank Gehry-designed headquarters in New York City. You can learn more at FBAIR's page.
He launched Love Letters 2 Lebanon in the fall of 2019 to bring messages of hope and inspiration to his ancestral homeland in Lebanon.
