Novel Approach to Lighting: Art by Meghan Sims
Ontario painter Meghan Sims has developed a unique style stemming from a condition that affects her vision. Meghan’s color and day-blindness, due to Achromatopsia, have helped shape her artistic practice, allowing the artist to take a truly novel approach to lighting and color in painting.
Individuality, acrylic and glass on canvas
In our previous feature of Meghan’s nighttime landscapes, we looked at the way the artist uses points of light, shining out of blacked-out canvases, to build up cityscapes and images that have a great sense of depth. Some of Meghan’s detailed night paintings remind me of cityscapes by Dennis Ekstedt, in the way that the artist shifts focus onto details that might normally function as subtle highlights.
The front page of Meghan's art website
Meghan has also developed a technique for creating color paintings – according to a statement, the artist covered up the names of the colors on her paint tubes, then ordered them by which appeared lightest and darkest. Working from photographs, the artist then reproduced images tonally, rather than focusing on the actual hues.
