David Lebe, Scribble #23

Using a long exposure, Lebe was able to “draw” in front of his camera with a flashlight, creating striking drawings that juxtapose recognizable objects with fantastical explosions of light. The “sinuous scribbles,” as the artist calls them, emerge from the vase as if they are alive.

Lebe describes light as representing “a kind of life energy detached from any solid body—spirits without bodies. A representation of the dead.” These images came out of his experience dealing with the horrors of the AIDS epidemic, which took the lives of many of his friends and former boyfriends.