TATYANA MURRAY – In The Woods
BOSI Contemporary
48 Orchard Street
New York, NY 10002
May 5 – June 2, 2013
BOSI Contemporary presents In The Woods, a solo exhibition by British born artist Tatyana Murray. The exhibition explores afflictions of the human condition: loss of innocence, isolation, mortality, conflict, the role of authority, the compulsion to harness and control nature.
Though the artwork addresses these darker facets, Murray has chosen light as a constant theme, as it illustrates the fragility and ever changing aspect of life. Murray works with mixed-media sculptures, drawings, and etched light boxes to create themes of skulls, animal physiognomic, ghost trees and young schoolgirls in trance like states. Being a self-taught artist, imagination and intuition play a significant role in the development of Murray’s artistic vision.
Her etched light boxes use high-end technology — programmed LED light — with classical drawing techniques. Scratch marks are etched and sculpted into the multiple layers of glass. Once turned on, the light source refracts off the markings, creating the illusion of movement and three-dimensionality. This generates a tension between the old and the new, ultimately addressing the issue of time. Through the violent act of scratching onto glass, the refracted light reveals a delicate portrait but, once the light is off, the image disappears. The eye passes through the layers of glass the way memory passes through time. The figures are suspended within the clear block, creating a fragile tension between the solid and the ethereal, the traditional and the experimental, nostalgia and utopia.
Growing up in Britain, Murray made sense of the world through fairy tales and imagination. She studied “Lord of the Flies” and the Grimm’s Fairy Tales were read to her by her mother. Murray found these stories both terrifying and intriguing. Her artwork at times is autobiographical, but the impact is universal; good versus evil, handling infancy and memory in its fantastical dimension shared by everyone. She places the viewer in an intermediate world between dream and wakefulness, between a child’s nightmare and Fairy Tale.
Murray started showing her work in her mid 20s, and was given her first solo show in Manhattan. She has been exhibited in New York City, London, Paris, Vienna, Barcelona, Cannes, Miami, Bahamas and Venice. Murray currently lives and works in New York City.
