No Safety Zone
dal 30/10/2001 al 9/12/2001
Segnalato da
Bishop's University Art Gallery
30/10/2001
No Safety Zone
Art Gallery Bishop, Lennoxville, QC
Installation by Robert Holland Murray: a site-specific installation by Robert Holland Murray. This assemblage consists of thirty-seven rods of ebonized red oak, which the artist has connected with meticulously carved joints. Wrestling with ambivalent sensations of whether to approach or maintain a safe distance, the viewer is at once seduced and repelled by the dangerous beauty of the structure’s sharpened, weapon-like tips.
Installation by Robert Holland Murray
The Art Gallery of Bishop’s University is pleased to present "No Safety Zone," a site-
specific installation by Robert Holland Murray from October 31, to December 9, 2001.
This assemblage consists of thirty-seven rods of ebonized red oak, which the artist
has connected with meticulously carved joints.
Wrestling with ambivalent sensations of whether to approach or maintain a safe
distance, the viewer is at once seduced and repelled by the dangerous beauty of the
structure’s sharpened, weapon-like tips. The delicate and precarious equilibrium of this
wooden constellation seems at odds with its threatening physicality, one of many contradictions
that
pervade, rendering the act of apprehension complex and compelling.
The unsettling impression
resulting
from conflicting responses to the work is one that the artist fosters, for it is the recognition
that dualities
and contradictions permeate all objects and ideas that challenge the viewer by preventing simple
resolution.
Creating an emotionally charged viewing experience, Murray invites us to explore the
tensions
that disrupt a unified response, for as the artist repeatedly demonstrates, these contradictions
serve as
the fertile ground for multiple and conflicting significations leading ultimately to the
destabilization of
commonly held truths.
Murray’s creative journey is one marked by continuous discoveries and is galvanized through the
artist’s
communion with his sculptural materials. Immersed in the creative cycle of labour, the artist
meditates
upon and incorporates the teachings that emerge during the course of the artistic process.
A Montreal-based artist, Robert Holland Murray has been teaching in the Fine Arts Department of
Concordia University since 1975. Some of his solo exhibitions include Parallax(e) presented at
Galerie
Oboro,(1995) and Recent Works shown at the Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts, Montreal (1999).
Robert Holland Murray would like to thank the Concordia woodshop technicians, Zav Levinson and
Robert
Bissonette, for the crucial assistance they provided in realizing this project.
VERNISSAGE: Wednesday, October 31, 2001, 5-7 p.m.
Artist 's talk: Thursday, November 1, 2001 at 2:00 p.m.
at the Art Gallery of Bishop’s University
Robert Holland Murray will be available for interviews from Monday
October
29 to Friday, November 2,
2001.
HOURS: Tuesday to Sunday from 12-5 p.m.
Admission is free
For further information or to book a tour of the
exhibition please contact:
Allyson Adley (819) 822-9600, ext. 2687