I launched my career at the age of 16 making punk flyers in San Francisco. Never being content with the prevailing trend, I quickly moved on to creating interactive theater parties. These events, created in the California counterculture millieu of the ’90s, were frenzied collaborative happenings that were seminal in their influence. “The Feast of Fools”, “St. Valentine’s Midnight Masquerade Debauch” and “The Secrets of Uranus” are a few of these productions.

I began the 21st century traveling through South East Asia in an effort to document trance and spirit possession ceremonies. The video and photos collected form the corpus of a film entitled: “Loose Spirits”.

Between 2003 and 2008 I devoted myself to 3D animation, and produced two short films: “The Bicycle Ride” (a tribute to Albert Hofmann) and “Pyramid” (a collaboration with Colin Angus), both of which are expressions of my deep appreciation for the psychedelic experience.

Since 2008 my primary focus has been on oil painting, creating such works as “The Pool”, “Chemical Imbalance”, and “The Human Tree” among others.

In the spring of 2010 I began to make ” The Illuminations” a traveling installation of glowing, self-illuminated prints based on my paintings.
The Illuminations have exhibited them in Europe and various locations around the United States, including a large scale installation at Burning Man 2010.

I live in Stinson Beach, California with my wife, April Lelia, an Indonesian artist.

- David Normal
October 2010

What is an “Illumination”?

A sign-maker might call describe an “Illumination” as a double-sided light-box using LED light strips to edge-light an acrylic sheet and  to illuminate  back-lit print media.

What that means is that there are strips of high intensity, low wattage LED lights mounted in the frames.  These strips abut the edges of the acrylic sheet that the frame is holding.  The acrylic transmits the light through its surface.  Adhered to this surface is an inkjet print of the painting that has been made on media specially manufactured for backlighting.   This media picks up the light from the surface of the Acrylic and radiates it outward.

It is a simple effect, but it is dependent on an array of sophisticated technologies:  LED light, Acrylic Sheeting, Inkjet Printing, Synthetic Fabric.