Luke Sallaz is a Brazilian visual artist whose practice investigates the limits of the fixed image and the multiplicity of perception. Before dedicating himself fully to the visual arts, he spent more than two decades working with poetry and music, forms through which he first sought to translate emotional experience. He studied Literature at the State University of Londrina and worked in education and corporate management, while continuing to develop his creative voice.

In 2017 he interrupted his previous professional path and entered a period of withdrawal and intense self-examination. This process of reorientation prepared the ground for a decisive shift: in 2019, almost by chance, he began to paint. Painting offered a more direct and material language. Early works quickly attracted attention and commissions, marking the beginning of his career as a visual artist.

In the following years he lived in the Veneto region of Italy, where he deepened his technical research and consolidated his artistic identity. It was during this period that he developed "Alukemia" (alchemy of light), an original technique based on metamerism and specially formulated pigments. The method allows multiple images to coexist on a single surface and to be revealed according to the frequency of incident light — white, ultraviolet or coloured — turning perception itself into an active component of the work.

In 2024 he worked in Toronto, producing paintings and immersive entertainment projects. His practice has since expanded from painting into installation and site-specific environments. Across these contexts, his work explores transformation, the coexistence of different realities on the same surface, and the possibility of interrupting the sense of fixedness.

Artistic Manifesto

Transmutation: Art as the Revelation of the Beyond-Visible

My artistic practice begins from a fundamental premise: sensible reality is fleeting. What truly matters does not reside in what presents itself immediately to perception, but in that which manifests beyond the visible. The deliberate change of illumination — from white light to black light (UVA) — is not a merely technical or spectacular resource. It is a device of environmental transformation and, above all, an alteration of frequencies that reveals previously hidden dimensions. It is precisely in the instant of this transition that the work is realized.

It is not merely a physical painting, nor a neon aesthetic. The proposed experience is a complete change of environment — external and internal — that is reflected directly in the observer’s aesthetic enjoyment. Until the advent of technologies capable of precisely controlling luminous frequency, painting was conceived according to the available ambient light. Today, the possibility of constructing the ideal environment with the desired frequency allows not only the observation of different responses from the pigments, but also induces the spectator to “enter” the work. Enjoyment occurs in the fleeting moment when the lights change. In that brief interval, all of eternity manifests itself.

I call this operation “transmutation,” a term I deliberately recover from its alchemical origin: the transformation of lead into gold. The purpose of my art is to reveal the “gold” of the spiritual dimension that dwells beyond apparent materiality. Without the spirit, matter remains inert. What we call the physical body is, ultimately, an extension and consolidation of subtle energies. The spirit moves the arm; matter is the densified form of that same force. I do not deny science — it is an instrument and an ally. The paints I prepare, using non-toxic matte and fluorescent pigments, are based on precise physical principles: the excitation of electrons by high-energy ultraviolet radiation (UVA, 395 nm), with subsequent emission of visible light. Black light remains at the threshold of human vision and, under the controlled conditions in which I use it, poses no risk to health. Science, here, is not an end, but a means to reach and make the spiritual perceptible.

This reflection finds resonance in my conceptual research on depression and in the psychological investigation of images and symbols. Depression, as a state of compression of vital experience, frequently manifests as a fixation on what is immutable, as if reality were reduced to its opaque surface. My studies examine how images and symbols — especially those activated under altered conditions of luminous perception — can operate as catalysts of psychic displacement. The transition of luminous frequencies functions, in this sense, as a device of controlled destabilization of habitual perception, allowing latent symbolic contents to come to the surface. It is not a matter of illustrating depression, but of creating conditions for the observer to experience, in their own body and perception, the possibility of passage: from fixity to mobility, from opacity to revelation, from material weight to subtle lightness.

Thus, my art does not intend merely to be contemplated. It proposes an experience of passage — scientific in its means, alchemical in its horizon, psychological in its attunement to internal states, and symbolic in its capacity to reveal what remains hidden under ordinary light. At the moment the frequency changes, the world changes. And with it, the possibility of seeing.

The Lamp

What does the lamp represent in artistic production? What is its symbolic meaning, and what does it effectively reveal?

In the artistic work of Luke Sallaz, the lamp serves as a symbolic construct for a phenomenon that is complex to represent visually: the concept that the observer is not merely a passive spectator, but the active agent who constructs their own reality. This represents a subversion of the notion that we are passive perceivers of our environment, converting the observing mind into the structuring subject of reality itself. In this way, the locus of causality and blame is shifted away from the external world, placing the responsibility of the cognitive experience directly onto the perspective of the beholder.

From this premise, an ontological reflection emerges regarding who holds mastery over our perception of reality. It does not imply attributing the status of creator deities to the human condition; rather, it highlights that the mediation and management of reality occur through the interpretive lens of the observer. As sacred scripture teaches: "The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light" (Matthew 6:22).

From the perspective of neuroscience and sensory processing, the human visual system possesses striking anatomical limitations. The central fovea—the retinal region responsible for visual acuity and high-resolution detail perception—occupies only approximately 1% of the entire visual field. If we relied exclusively on the raw data captured by the retina, our perceptual experience of the world would be predominantly blurred and chaotic.

The reason we do not perceive our surroundings as a blur lies in the fact that the brain processes and encodes visual reality, structuring a continuous and clear mental representation. Within this perceptual reorganization, the eyes perform rapid movements known as saccades—about three to four times per second—during which the brain triggers saccadic suppression, briefly deactivating conscious visual perception for intervals of approximately 50 milliseconds per movement. This evolutionary mechanism prevents the cognitive overload of experiencing a chaotic, continuous motion blur. The sum of these discrete moments of functional blindness amounts to nearly two hours per day of interrupted vision, gaps that the brain seamlessly fills using memory, contextual cues, and predictive inferences (Eagleman, 2015).

Beyond neural processing, the phenomena of light and color further demonstrate the brain's active role in constructing reality. Physically, light is electromagnetic radiation composed of photons oscillating at various wavelengths. Matter and objects possess no intrinsic colors; they merely absorb and reflect specific light wavelengths. When these frequencies reach the retina, photoreceptors (cones and rods) transduce the light stimuli into electrical impulses. The brain then synthesizes these electrical signals within the visual cortex, "translating" them into the qualitative experience of the chromatic spectrum—red, blue, yellow. Therefore, color is not an inherent physical property of the external world, but a neurobiological construction derived from light.

In light of this, who is truly responsible for seeing and interpreting the world? The brain serves as the biological interpretive apparatus; however, we are not reducible to encephalic structures, neurological impulses, fleeting thoughts, or emotional states. We are the observing subject that transcends this apparatus: we are consciousness.

This conscious dimension is a divine gift. It constitutes the "fundamental energy" that powers the lamp, causing it to radiate its light and enabling the human mind to apprehend and find meaning in the world. After all, just as a lamp devoid of electrical power remains inert and incapable of illuminating, the biological structure without the breath and energy of divine consciousness is incapable of revelation. As the Psalmist declares: "For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light" (Psalm 36:9) and "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path" (Psalm 119:105).

References:

1. THE HOLY BIBLE. King James Version. (Matthew 6:22; Psalm 36:9; Psalm 119:105).

2. EAGLEMAN, David. The Brain: The Story of You. New York: Pantheon Books, 2015.

3. MATEMATIZEI (Andreza Capiotto). Você NÃO decide nada? A verdade sobre o Livre-Arbítrio. YouTube video, 2025.