Luke Hallam

Bio

Born 1976 in Geelong, Luke Hallam grew up and resides on the rugged Surf Coast of Victoria, Australia. Since graduating from Deakin University with a Bachelor in Visual Arts in 1996 he has worked professionally as a Graphic, Motion, and Web Designer.

Luke’s current work consists of ink and acrylic paintings on canvas. The paintings develop from loose abstract landscapes, that employ light washes, runs, drips and splashes. Canvases are then overlaid with realistic, translucent figures and elements, created by airbrushing light layers of opaque inks, combined with acrylic brushwork to varying degrees of fruition. This allows the landscape to show through the foreground elements in places, creating an almost surreal interdependence between the objects and the environment, emphasising the finite existence we all ultimately share on earth.

Artist Statement

My family home growing up, was situated only 1 kilometre from an open cut coal mine and power station. We could often hear the hum of the mining machinery, and the whirr of the coal fired power station with it’s steam driven turbines, usually on a still crisp night. Like a sleeping giant, it had no discernible effect on our lives growing up, it was just “there”. As young boys, my brother and I would often ride our bikes through the bush to the mine, and look into the pit with wonder, watching the oversized machinery chipping away at the earth, extracting coal and turning it into power.

Current times see the mining of natural, non-renewable resources receiving increasingly high media exposure. Financial incentives and the developing worlds appetite for these resources will ensure demand remains strong. Along with political pressure to maintain employment and successful industries, which in turn drive the financial underpinnings of the capitalist world economies.

The work is not intended to either promote or condemn global resource mining, but to present the visual aspect that is more often, “out of site, out of mind”. A incompatibility of, visual splendour, engineering feats, and environmental impact.