The brilliance of darkness

Art First

Artist Karel Nel participated in the Cosmic Evolution Survey that used the Hubble Space telescope (10 per cent of the time for two years) to secure high resolution images of clusters of galaxies in a two degree area of the sky. His materials include salts and carboniferous dusts that were expelled from stars in the distant past. The catalogue design for ‘the brilliance of darkness’ show of Karel Nel’s work at Art First uses materials (matt dense black), colour (black, white, silver), format (square) and typographic detailing (geometric font) to communicate the artist’s insight that the binding darkness of space is central to our being, both materially and spiritually.