In his paintings,
Dennis Ekstedt is interested in how an illuminated cityscape can resemble a luminous organism, with electric light acting as a kind of nervous system or pulse ,a manifestation of human presence. He explores how we perceive distant views of illuminated cityscapes as a kind of phenomenon of electric light, and how they can resemble luminous organisms. In his work the city grid imposes a kind of structural order on the abstract-like clusters of city lights that are meeting, melding, and interfering with one another; like colliding cells or parts of an organism.
Ekstedt aims to treat light in a way that gives the cityscapes a kind of liquid fluidity that can imply movement and temporality; an experience of light as it intensifies, fades and then burns into a fleeting retinal memory. In his latest paintings electric light is more liquid, fluid and organic. Now the cityscapes seem more elemental, referring to things such as liquids and gases, as well as to micro and macro phenomenon such as bioluminescent life forms and the cosmos.