Electro Luminescence

Electroluminescent Wire (EL) was first patented in 1999 but recent improvements make it a wholly 21st Century substance. It has many layers around a copper core that is coated with a phosphor which glows continually 360° along its length when a current is applied to it.

Jonathan Thomson is a pioneer in the use of EL wire in art. His EL drawings on aluminium or canvas board are based on a strictly reductive approach to line that brings both line and volume and figure and background into a simultaneous opposition and balance with one another in an expression of unity and harmony.

Rendered in light and different every hour of every day, these drawings reveal the process of seeing.