Black and white abstract long-exposure photograph created with light-drawing motion. Soft flowing shapes and sweeping white streaks move across a dark background, inspired by dance.

Dancing Into The Light: A Choreography of Presence

The Story Behind the Collection

Dancing Into The Light began with a simple curiosity:
What if I could draw with light using my body?

Dance was my first artistic language, timing, breath, shape, rhythm. Photography arrived later as a way to observe the world rather than perform in it.
This project is where those two voices finally converged.

Drawing With Light

One late afternoon, light streamed through a window, a short-lived stage calling for a final performance. I turned up ABBA’s Dancing Queen, set the camera to a slow shutter, and moved.

Swirls. Sweeps. A body creating marks in the air.

The images that emerged blurred boundaries, between the seen and the felt, the still and the becoming. Presence became motion; motion became form.

This was experiential play, the former dancer improvising again, but this time with a shutter as the partner.

 

Collage of monochrome light-drawing artworks with soft flowing vertical movement, paired with framed wall art styled in contemporary interiors, blending abstract motion photography with modern design.

 

A Different Kind of Drawing

These works became my submission to the prestigious Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award (JADA) in 2018, one of Australia’s leading awards promoting innovation in drawing.

While the work was not selected, the submission was a milestone.
It asked a provocative question:

If charcoal, ink, or graphite can draw…
why not light and motion?

This entry claimed a space for photography within the evolving language of drawing and for dance as a mark-making practice.


Collage of abstract long-exposure artworks featuring sweeping horizontal light traces over deep black backgrounds, shown alongside styled room views emphasising movement, contrast, and modern minimalist décor.

 

Artwork Details

Title: Dancing in the Light
Artist: Raymond Mather
Medium: Photographic print, light-drawing performance
Paper: Hahnemühle Museum Etching 350gsm, 100% Cotton
Framed dimensions: 159cm × 110cm

This body of work marked a turning point, a reawakening of movement within my photographic practice.

Evolution Into a Fine Art Collection

This series has now evolved into the Dancing Into The Light collection on ART1.

Created for those who appreciate movement, emotion, and abstraction in their spaces, each work is:

  • Limited Edition of 50
  • Printed on museum-quality fine art paper
  • Designed to bring atmosphere and poetic rhythm to a room

This is dance captured in stillness.

 

Collage of dynamic monochrome light-drawing artworks with intersecting motion and sculptural energy, presented with room-view mockups to highlight fine-art presentation in refined interior spaces.

 

A Final Note

I didn’t create these works to be selected or validated.
I created these works because my body remembered what joy felt like.

Light, music, and movement.
That was enough.
Sometimes art isn’t about what you see,
it’s about what moves you.

 

Explore the Collection

View Dancing Into The Light artworks

 

 

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