‘Light Play: Ideas, Optics, Atmosphere’ considers the work of contemporary artists who employ light and related technologies, and examines their practice in relation to artistic precedents. Historically, artists invoked light’s symbolic power and, from the late-19th century, explored its fleeting optical effects. In the 1920s and 1930s László Moholy-Nagy and his contemporaries equated electric light with Modernist ideals while, in the 1960s and 1970s, Minimalist and Conceptual artists, including Dan Flavin and Bruce Nauman, experimented with fluorescence. Light play, which coincides with the International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies, features artworks by artists who use light as a medium in its own right, to create their work or its effects, or to explore socio-political concerns. Artists include Lincoln Austin, Marian Drew, Nicholas Folland, Tim Maguire, and Jacky Redgate, among others.

You are invited to join a curated tour hosted by curator, Samantha Littley from 5:00 pm to 6:00 pm, followed by the official opening night festivities from 6:30 pm on Friday August 14 at The University of Art Museum. 

Image: Jacky Redgate, Light Throw (Mirrors) #4 2010-2011, Type C photograph (hand printed from original negative), facemounted to Perspex, Collection of The University of Queensland, purchased 2012. Reproduced courtesy of the artist and ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne.