When I was around 5 or 6 years old I went to some theater plays and was totally knocked out by the effect the lighting had on me. Then when I was a teenager, I liked all the psychedelic light shows, and started to build my own version of the trippy light experience.In my home, I love having amazing lamps with different color bulbs, because the glow is so magical.

Walking into my church living room at Loveland, which I use as a gallery, is like walking into a painting. The colors from all the lamps play off each other and its ethereal, like being in a sunset. Sunsets have such an attraction, because everyone loves what light does. Light just does things that no other medium can do.

I had been painting for a number of years, and happened upon these silkscreens. After I painted them and saw in my studio how the light came through them and how you could see the silkscreened images beneath the paint, I wanted to find a way that anyone could have this experience. So, with the help of my friend Sham Morris, I put the paintings on these lightboxes and the way the images react to being lit up from the inside has suprised even me. There's things that happen with the play of light from the light behind them and light in the room that couldn't happen any other way. I think they're especially exciting in this time because so much of today's world is high tech, that it creates a longing for the primitive, the way these paintings are. When the light comes through, it makes a fascinating juxtaposition, a fusion of the primal and the modern. The main thing about them is that they're fun, and very 21st century.

Justin Love, a self-taught artist, lives in a 103 year old church on the outskirts of Woodstock, NY, named Loveland, which he uses as a studio and gallery. He has a background in music, lending his paintings a musical quality. He has exhibited widely throughout the US and Europe over the last 14 years. Most recently, he had a 10-year retrospective of his work at the Grant Gallery in Soho, New York.