DARK LUMINANCE @ MARS GALLERY: SEPTEMBER 2009

DARK LUMINANCE is an exhibition that celebrates the visions of six up and coming Australian artists working around the notion of Darkness and Luminance to the people of Melbourne at Mars Gallery in September 2009. The exhibition will also be shown in the virtual online world of Second Life, and be projected in the gallery, and thus combining the real and virtual artworks in the same space. Curators and artists for DARK LUMINANCE, John Derrick and James Hullick, describe the Dark Luminance aesthetic as:“an essentially dark or ‘empty’ (either in colour palette or psychology) that can be manic, disturbing, vacant, and haunting. Night-time can be beautifully captivating as well as terrifying. Emerging through this darker base are moments of bright luminosity and transparency (again either in colour palette or psychology). Considering contemporary Australia’s arts practice from a birds-eye view suggests that the dialogue between old and new technologies in art making practices is forcing artists to readdress their art making process, and is illustrated in the Dark Luminance aesthetic. The first iteration of the Dark Luminance project took place in New York in two galleries in August 2008, Gallery Sakiko in Chelsea, and the much acclaimed Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. It was a runaway success, one critic remarking “sometimes I encounter an exhibition so overwhelming, covers so much territory and breaks so much new ground, that it’s difficult to write about” Joe Bendik, Chelsea Clinton Press, 2008.

The DARK LUMINANCE artists are dynamic:

· John Derrick takes the tradition of portraiture and combines it with 3D digital projections. He is extending the role of figurative oil painting on canvas by harnessing the use of new technologies through the use of 3D gaming environments. Derrick is visual curator for DARK LUMINANCE. "human assemblies masked in the rueful incognito of their own emotion, Derrick is a Watteau of malaise.” Bruce James, Samstag Catalogue.

· James Hullick’s sound installations are dark and disturbing landscapes. He utilizes robotics in his installations to generate sound, and he seeks to describe the relationship between traditional and progressive technologies using the phenomenon of recursion in his work. Hullick is artistic director for JOLT and sound curator for DARK LUMINANCE. "he's been up to no good, with mayhem on his mind." Penny Web, THE AGE. “in the keenest listening to the application of the musical fabric, a highly reduced transparent psychogram, that shocks as much as electrifies the listener.” Rafael Rennicke, Südwestpresse. www.jameshullick.com

· Lisa Dethridge is a leading light in the development of Second Life environments in Melbourne, where her explorations focus on the social interaction arising from virtual worlds. Dethridge is a published writer and academic at the School of Creative Media RMIT University.

· Jane Hall will show prints that are abstract and organic. She works intuitively making marks on paper and revealing relationships between each mark. Colour is used expressively to convey particular moods or feelings.

· Rene Van Kan transposes the language of graffiti into the gallery setting, straddling the fine art world and public art in the streets. He works intuitively using his “tag” to construct a mural, and combines this with paint on canvas and paper.

· Julie Mihalovska will display oil paintings using cultural icons such as churches, streets and historical monuments. She uses her poetry as text with the imagery to reveal universal emotions.

A REVIEW OF THE DARK LUMINANCE PROJECT IN NEW YORK (2008)

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