constellations
Stephen Haley 2006

A gentle lure into a hall of mirrors, a labyrinth constructed from resemblance, Jan Murray’s latest exhibition constellations is clean, and cool and very, very slippery. Like a Borgesian fable, that begins with certainty and singularity, things quickly become multiple and mercurial. What emerges is not simple, absolute or conclusive; rather it acknowledges the complexity, and teases out the paradoxes, inherent in both looking and in painting.

Consider these small black and white canvases (and the accompanying larger works) they appear slashed, but this is an illusion. The apparent perforations, their edges protruding into space, are not actual holes but trompe l’oeil representations. Although they recall Lucio Fontana’s earlier gesture of cutting canvases - a touchstone the artist acknowledges and admires – these works are radically different. Arranged as an installation, the works additionally investigate painting’s relationship to architectural space. Constructed as repetitions and reflections, or more correctly, as permutations the works evoke a Baroque delirium despite their restrained minimalist style. There is a resonant play between what appear to be opposites - absence and presence, black and white, real and represented - to name only a few. Here however, these poles appear not as absolute oppositions but as contingent arrangements that place simple binaries themselves under examination. Beyond these structural considerations, the iconography itself is, well, suggestive. Do not blush if I say there is something a little vaginal about these forms, or anal, or oral. They also recall small, silent blooms - like explosions on TV with the sound turned down - or the cold blast of distant stars as they rent the fabric of space.

Philosophers think about thinking, and painters paint about painting, at least in part. The medium inevitably concerns itself with issues of perception and representation but Murray’s practice makes this an unwavering focus, questioning these processes and painting itself - to the point of apparent rupture. Murray’s ‘openings’ do not suggest a metaphysical realm beyond the limits of painting – rather they suggest there is no easy way out. These slashes reveal not the space of the void, but of the sign. The dramatic, violent and destructive gesture of slashing has been recapitulated back into painting. There is no escape from the fabric of being here and on close viewing, the viewer is swiftly returned to the ineluctable screen of the canvas – back within the inescapable maze of representation itself - the labyrinth of image, language and the sign systems that lie between us and the world, or more accurately, that enmesh us within the fabric of the world.

Although insistent on materiality, these paintings are not quotidian, but are suffused with poetics and wonder. Weirdly, these works are painted from models. Actual torn canvases were posed and mimicked in paint onto another, doppelganger, canvas. Given the long critique of the medium during the 20th century, this insistence on painting is a little, well, strange and is moreover, a highly defiant gesture. Despite the cynics, Murray’s dedication to painting (and the medium’s persistence against all odds) speaks of its great possibilities. If no longer considered a medium of mystical transcendence, it remains a medium of mystery and transportation. It holds out tantalizing possibilities and evokes wonder - not via a naively constructed metaphysics - but through material simulation. It is a medium capable of a metacritical stance. Painting can emulate all other mediums while simultaneously signalling this as illusion. It is thus positioned to allow distanced remarks on all modes of representation, including itself. Whereas, other representational mediums automate aspects of perception and representation, painting is always invented. As these works indicate, the canvas is not unbounded space, but is tied to preexisting systems of vision and depiction. Even with these qualifications, there are possibilities and flexibilities in painting unavailable to more mechanistic mediums. Murray’s engagement with painting then is of a highly aware, sophisticated and committed order. Hers is an approach that acknowledges these social and historical critiques, while reaffirming that which cannot be purged from the medium – its fundamental wonder and its requirement that practitioner and viewer alike engage with, and re-imagine, the processes of perception and representation.

In constellations Murray rigorously looks at looking and speculates on perception and representation. Just as Fontana’s minimal gesture, his simple trick, opened out creative possibilities, so too does the apparent literalism of these works rapidly escalate into poetics. The exhibition leaves a final impression of poise – not stillness exactly – but of an unresting balance. In the end, it is this suspension of certainty that is most impressive about this show – it speaks of complexity, in clarity and with lucidity. It evokes an experience of intoxicating wonder akin to the cool, sure beauty of the stars seen at night.