THE ONLYES POWER IS NO POWER

Murray’s practice explores journeys as transformative mechanisms, exploring how meaning changes as an object moves from one point to another. THE ONLYES POWER IS NO POWER examines the geographic, historical and personal overlap between the trajectories of Hoffman’s Novelty Circus, a circus run by Murray’s family that toured each summer through Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia from 1933 to 1943, and the deployment of Japanese Fu-Go “balloon bombs”, over one hundred of which fell on the Canadian prairies between 1944 and 1945. The title of the series and exhibition is a quotation from Russell Hoban’s post nuclear-apocalyptic novel Riddley Walker.

Over the past year, Murray has conducted archival and interview-based research on these two themes. Based on this research, he mapped a circuit of locations in Alberta and Saskatchewan where the circus had performed and a Fu-go bomb had subsequently fallen. He photographed landscapes at these locations on two separate trips, first in summer when the circus toured, and then in the winter when the bombs had fallen. Each location was photographed twice on 4x5 large-format colour film, with the negatives partially masked, in camera, by a black paint stroke. These paint strokes leave a portion of the negative unexposed during each exposure, this portion is “filled in” by the other exposure. Once developed, additional strokes are painted on the surface of the negative. The completed image thus depicts two separate landscapes, and two seasons, in a single image mediated by paint strokes.

For the exhibition, the artist proof of each photograph is installed in the unique vitrine exhibition space and black paint strokes are painted on the facing window. The arcs of the shadows of the black paint strokes move across the works as the sun moves through the sky, altering the works composition. They add shadow forms into the composition and mediate the potential effect of the light on the shielded and exposed sections of the print. The exhibition space is transformed into an experimental camera, pushing Murray’s transformative process further.

THE ONLYES POWER IS NO POWER is exhibited at VITRINE following its first presentation at The Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Canada, in the 2017 Alberta Biennial of Contemporary Art.