Unseen
Jan Murray, Sean Lowry
3–20 Oct 2018
Unseen continued Murray's enduring exploration of the traditions of trompe l’oeil and investigation of the ‘anatomy’ of painting - specifically the relationship between the intrinsic and extrinsic architecture of the two dimensional canvas and the wall on which it is installed. Small paintings of air vents/grilles/chutes and similar architectural utilities are installed to masquerade as functional architectural elements throughout the Gallery and disappear into the white cube. These works are faithfully modeled on examples from various buildings throughout Melbourne including the Nicholas Building as well as those made in Berlin from a three-month residency at the Phasmid Studios in Marzahn (July-Sept 2017). This work alludes to the possibility of these functional elements not only enabling breath by means of ventilation or air circulation but hearing as they perform like ears – almost listening to the building’s activity. Perhaps too, they metaphorically operate as eyes – allowing a glimpse into the past and the rich history embodied in the Nicholas Building - acting as conduits to hidden ‘realities’.
Unseen continued Jan Murray's enduring exploration of the traditions of trompe l’oeil and investigation of the ‘anatomy’ of painting - specifically the relationship between the intrinsic and extrinsic architecture of the two dimensional canvas and the wall on which it is installed.
This program takes place on the land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. We recognise that sovereignty was never ceded - this land is stolen land. We pay respects to Wurundjeri Elders, past, present and emerging, to the Elders from other communities and to any other Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders who might encounter or participate in the program.
Jan Murray completed her postgraduate qualifications at the VCA and RMIT University. Since 1981 she has shown regularly in both solo and group exhibitions in public museums, commercial galleries and artist run initiatives. Her work has been included in national and international surveys of contemporary art in Australia, Germany, France, Italy and the USA, and is widely represented in significant Australian public collections as well as the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum and the Metropolitan Museum in New York. She has received an Australia Council Project Grant and her Australia Council Residencies include Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Via Farini, Milan the British School at Rome. Recent residencies include Phasmid Studios, Berlin in 2016-17. She is represented by Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne.
Sean LowryDr Sean Lowry is a Melbourne-based visual artist, writer, curator and musician. He holds a PhD in Visual Arts from the University of Sydney and is currently Head of Critical and Theoretical Studies in Art at Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne. Lowry’s conceptually driven artistic practice employs strategies of concealment, subliminal quotation, erasure, remediation and intermedial expansion to explore the outermost limits of the world of a work of art. He has exhibited and performed extensively both nationally and internationally, and his writing appears in numerous journals and edited volumes. He is also Founder and Executive Director of global blind peer reviewed exhibition program Project Anywhere—which is currently supported as part of a partnership between the Centre of Visual Art (University of Melbourne) and Parsons Fine Art (Parsons School of Design, The New School). Lowry is also one half (with Ilmar Taimre) of the radically intermedial artistic curatorial initiative The Ghosts of Nothing.
