LOUISVILLE, Ky. — One Louisville artist doesn’t use your typical brush and paint to create art.

Billy Keith looks to the sky to see if he can make his unique art creations.

“I make art with the sun and giant magnifying lenses known as fresnel lenses,” said Keith.

Keith is a self-taught artist, but it all started with collecting lenses. Keith believes it was divine intervention that drew him to create what he calls solar combustion art.

“I had zero desire to ever be an artist. Before I was just some guy with a big collection of lenses that had an array of solar experiments going on,” said Keith.

Now Keith is known as the “Sun Man.”

“When I first started making art. And this is what they began as. So this is just like the symbol for love. This is the Hopi symbol for friendship. And this was just a symbol for like infinity to me,” Keith explained while showing some of his creations. “So it was like love and friendship forever and what it meant to me when I made it. But I didn’t mean to make it as one of those. I just kind of scribbled stuff on two pieces of wood.”

While Keith discovered this newfound passion for art, he says it is also an opportunity to make the world a brighter, friendlier place for everyone.

“I feel like the space I make around me is the most important part of it all. I make what I consider to be a sacred space. So whenever I’m actually burning, it kind of stops people and takes them back to almost a sense of childhood wonderment. From that point, we can actually interact with each other on a more human level.” Said Keith

Keith says whenever the sun is out, so is he.

“I’m out on the street for seven hours. I’m probably going to make art for seven hours. And by doing that, it really helped propel me along, because I’d make anywhere from one to one to seven pieces of art a day.” Said Keith

Keith says he has made around 45,000 pieces of sun burnt art all made in a spontaneous moment with the power of the sun. The Sun Shop will host a showing of solar combustion art next Friday, Aug. 23.