Lightfoot likes visual puzzles whose subject matter may be obsolete, unidentifiable, or without apparent meaning, but whose beauty obviates the need to categorize or classify. His work consists primarily of meticulously composed, close-focus abstract images in which brilliant color often vies with form and content for the viewer’s attention. Lightfoot’s goal is to engage the observer in a kind of visual lingua franca which supplants, or even transcends, verbal discourse.