ALTON, Ill. — When spooky season comes around, people flock across the river to what is believed to be one of the most haunted towns in America: Alton, Illinois.
The Jacoby Arts Center in Downtown Alton hosted it's Prints of Darkness Gallery opening this weekend. Prints of Darkness is a celebration of spooky, weird, dark, scary, and curious artwork in honor of the grand opening of Jacoby's new Darkroom and Experimental Film Photography Studio.
The show is juried by Jacoby’s resident artist and Darkroom Program manager, Jeffrey Sass. "The title is twofold in its pun, its play on words. It's a chance for the students that have run through this dark room program," Sass said.
Jeffrey launched the Jacoby Darkroom program a little over two months ago and now, he is teaching students the art of film photography, and some of those students have works in the show, like 14-year old Lilah Oelke. Her piece is title Pieces of Me.
"I mainly am trying to kind of leave the piece up for the viewers interpretation and how they feel. But it does actually have a very deep meaning to me. Essentially, what I'm trying to portray and how I feel about it is kind of just new beginnings, starting over and finding yourself," Oelke said.
A call for local artists to submit work brought in creators like filmmaker, Trevor Juenger. "I have five pieces in Prints of Darkness. For photo pieces, three of them are kind of traditional photos, and one of them is one of those weird composite photos. Then, we have a video piece as well. It's an installation with a CRT monitor and projector, and it's a clown. Scary stuff," Juenger said.
It’s a celebration of of media that explores all things dark and spooky! Prints of Darkness is on display at the Jacoby until November 11th.
"We've got paintings, we got sculptures, we've got glasswork. Big pieces, tiny pieces. It's a real quality showing of the darker side of our existence," Sass said.
The Jacoby Arts Center is located at 627 E Broadway in Alton, IL. 62002. For more information on Prints of Darkness or Jeffery's classes, visit jacobyartscenter.org.
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