James Murray's debut solo exhibition 'Desire Works' shows at Project 78 Gallery from April 22 - May 13.

Drawing on a range of theoretical and art-historical sources, James Murray’s work takes the photographic as a critical concept and as an interdisciplinary art practice.

Desire Works addresses the core preoccupations of Murray’s practice. Questions of touch, trace, surface, materiality and the desired body are explored through a range of gestures, resulting in a self-reflexive installation that seeks points of tension between abstraction and figuration.

Volumes with Sheet Copper (Apollo) copper, square section tube steel, books dimensions variable

Underpinning these thematic concerns is an ongoing reflection on the processes involved with the production of the work itself. Here Murray proposes an allegorical relationship between the notion of desire as a self-perpetuating drive and the studio space as a site for the enactment of desire, the pursuit of the unattainable object, of perfection in form.

Untitled (Apollo & Hyacinth) detail
Installation view

James Murray (B.1988) lives and works in Brighton UK. Recent exhibitions include Desire Works (solo) Project78 Gallery St Leonards on Sea UK, Old 16 / New 17 (group show) at Stephane Simeons Fine Art Knokke, Belgium, Athens Photo Festival at the Benaki Museum, Athens Greece, NYC Art Book FairDaily Life Storage (portfolio presentation) PS1 MOMA, NYC USA, Screened(group show) Brighton Photo Fringe, Brighton UK, East Sussex Open at Towner Gallery Eastbourne UK

Installation view
Volumes with Sheet Copper (Apollo) detail

James’s next show Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing shows at Stephane Simoens Contemporary Fine Art Knokke, Belgium  20 May – 4 July 2017.

Untitled (Touched) archival pigment print in artists frame with graphite finish, 29.5 x 33.5 x 3 cm
installation view
Untitled (Apollo & Hyacinth) flax linen with copper tacks on substrates, 183 x 180 x 4 cm

For more on James work, visit his site here.

 

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