THE DARK LUMINANCE PROJECT

"Sometimes I encounter and exhibition that is so overwhelming, covers so much territory and breaks so much new ground that it's difficult to write about it."

Joe Bendik,Chelsea Cinton Press, 2008 regarding DARK LUMINANCE IN NEW YORK

The DARK LUMINANCE Project is the brain-child of curators John Derrick and James Hullick. Derrick and Hullick refer to the aesthetic for this project as DARK LUMINANCE - luminance emanating from darkness.

The first iteration of the DARK LUMINANCE Project took place in two Galleries in New York; GALLERY SAKIKO based in Chelsea NY; and the acclaimed PRATT INSTITUTE in Brooklyn. It was a runaway success – “totally mind blowing” as one critic remarked.  The 'other' is celebrated in DARK LUMINANCE - the unknown - the mystery - the subconscious - the subterranean. DARK LUMINANCE has identified the dialogue between old and new technologies as a feature of the DARK LUMINANCE aesthetic and the curators have sought to draw this out through the use of real and virtual art works.

To date the DARK LUMINANCE Project has taken the form of real and virtual gallery based exhibitions and installations (virtual exhibitions have been shown in SecondLife). In 2009, for example, DARK LUMINANCE Project will take place in the exhibition format as DARK LUMINANCE @ MARS.

DARK LUMINANCE has been supported by: JOLT Arts Inc., MARS Gallery, Gallery Sakiko, The Pratt Institute, RMIT School of Creative Media and School of Art, Austrade, and the participating artists.

PROJECTS

JOLT's first DARK LUMINANCE Project events took place in 2008:

DARK LUMINANCE IN NY

WIGGA

In 2009 two more DARK LUMINANCE Projects are planned:

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. Rene showed in New York with the DARK LUMINANCE Project  (2008).

Mihalovska's oil paintings often work along themes relevant to cultural icons such as churches, streets and historical monuments. She uses her poetry as text within the imagery on the canvas to provide a textual layer that assists in driving her work towards the exploration of universal emotions. Mihalovska showed with the DARK LUMINANCE Project in New York (2008) and will be continuing her involvement in that project in 2009 at MARS Gallery.

Jane Hall predominantly works in the medium of printmaking. She works intuitively making marks on paper and revealing relationships between each mark. Colour is used expressively to convey particular moods or feelings. Her work involves the creation of mono-prints through a specific use of printing technology that she has developed. Hall has shown her work in JOLT's RMIT supported DARK LUMINANCE exhibitions in New York. Hall will also be showing with JOLT when the DARK LUMINANCE Project is presented at MARS Gallery in Melbourne in 2009.

www.janehallartist.com

Having a back ground in recontextualised social realist oil-based portraiture, John Derrick takes the tradition of portraiture and combines it with 3D digital projections. He has been proactively extending the role of more traditional figurative oil painting on canvas by harnessing the use of new technologies through the use of 3D gaming environments. Derrick is visual curator for JOLT's RMIT supported DARK LUMINANCE PROJECT which has shown in New York at the Pratt Institute NY, at Gallery Sakiko NY and at Shifted Gallery Melbourne (under the name WIGGA) (2008) and will be presented in a further iteration at MARS Gallery Melbourne in 2009. Derrick is a veteran of many group and solo shows and is an alumni of the VCA and the Pratt Institute in New York. Derrick is currently completing his PhD in the School of Creative media at RMIT University.

Originally from Canberra, Jeremy makes art in Melbourne from meticulously handwritten text. Winner of the Jenny Birt Award (2006) while at the College of Fine Arts, Sydney, he is now a Master in Art candidate at RMIT. In 2008 Bakker presented work in a group exhibition at Melbourne's BUS Gallery that explored different ways of making obsessive objects. This theme was continued when Bakker incorporated his many hundreds of wax thumb prints in JOLT's WIGGA exhibition later in the same year.