Luke Djalgarrarra grew up watching his father and uncles work as sculptors, carvers and painters on Goulburn Island, off the northern coast of Arnhem Land and off the northeastern Arnhem Land coast, respectively.

When he was 17, Luke started painting his own work depicting stories of Country. More recently he has taken up carving intricate sculptures of birds and animals that he sees out bush around his home in Ngukurr community.

Unique to Luke’s work are made up of bright experimental colours, beautifully carved shapes, carefully smoothed curves and clever sections of exposed wood.

Experimenting with new metallic colurs along with fluorescent paints, Luke has pushed his knowledge and developed an entirely new style of painting.

Adorning buffalo skulls, barks and his unique sculptures, Luke worked under both daylight and black light, which was ordered into the studio especially, making adjustments based on how the colours performed under the UV light (where the bright colours moved forward, whilst the black colours recede).

Exploring the vibrant possibilities of metallic hues fused with fluorescent paints, Luke has pushed his expertise into a new realm, forging an innovative painting style whilst maintaining the foundation of traditional rarrk cross-hatching.

His tactful manipulation of line work  has resulted in a collection of artworks that build on the strong tradition of vibrant colour works from Ngukurr Arts artists. But under UV light, they pop-off the wall and take on take a psychedelic spin into an entirely different form and personality.

These works have been created and reworked specifically for Laundry Gallery and we’re proud to present them for Luke’s first ever solo exhibition.

Kalawan bakmob en bafaloumob (bright barks and buffalo) runs until 20 July, see the exhibition here.