Natural Light in The Studio

See it in the flesh, and in photograph next week at Sur La Montagne in Berlin, and in May at Skew Gallery in Calgary.

SPARKLE not SPARGEL

The untitled art society in Calgary is holding a pretty fucking abgefahren fundraising party on August 6th. They're calling it Blitzen Die Partei, and hanging up some of my work and a few others' sparkly oeuvres. A few performances too, and some drinking and dancing.

Interview with Travis Reynolds for the Calgary Herald

Artist and expatriate Wil Murray returns to Calgary for the first time with his exhibition, I Hate Your Language You Hate Your Language.

Rife with meaning, Murray's conceptually laden, abstract sculptural paintings literally jump from the wall, providing a rich visual experience unfettered by the traditional, straight-ahead viewing angle. His works are assemblages of paint skins, photographs and three-dimensional constructs that fluctuate between being wildly excessive and subtly seductive.

Watch the video interview.

Review: I Hate Your Language Your Hate Your Language at Skew Gallery, Calgary

"Murray’s conversation with the visualization of his work reflects upon the in congruency the experience presents in person from that of which is represented when photographed, but states he values equally the photographic experience and the flesh."

From Raina Enss' review of my exhibition I Hate Your Language, You Hate Your Language, up now at Skew Gallery in Calgary.

I Hate Your Language, You Hate Your Language @ Skew Gallery Feb. 10th - Mar. 12th, 2011

I Hate Your Language, You Hate Your Language

Wil Murray

February 10th - March 12, 2011
Opening reception Feb. 10th : 6pm - 8pm (Artist In Attendance)

Skew Gallery: 1615 10th Avenue S.W. Calgary, AB Canada 001 403 244 4445

"You're looking at striated surfaces, drawn surfaces, old paint skins that have been peeled off, folded over on themselves, turned into a kind of sculptural element. It's a new kind of management of painted surfaces that are certainly a kind of Punk version of the bourgeois paintings" - Richard Rhodes, editor of Canadian Art describing Wil Murray's paintings on Bravo! Arts&Minds.

Skew Gallery is pleased to announce the return of Calgary's "hometown boy" Wil Murray to present a solo exhibition of his abstract sculptural paintings. Now based in Berlin Germany, Murray's interest in the radial view of his paintings propels the artist to create a cornucopia of layers in each painting, where paint itself serves as the subject of narrative. Murray assembles his paintings using acrylic paint-skins, brushwork, foam injections, and wooden appendages in an assortment of patterns and textures and forms. The resulting paintings are simultaneously garish in their excess, yet equally seductive in their unbridled vigor and skillful delivery; they are visceral both in the creation and the viewing.

See works from the exhibition here.

Photo: Maxime Ballesteros

Happy Hour With Wil Murray

On September 15th, I answer all your burning questions.
From anyone, on any subject....
In English, French or broken German...
I drink beer for courage, draw your questions from a hat and answer them one by one.

Please forward this to your pals, enemies, lovers, students and mothers.
Send your questions and RSVP here.

Upcoming Exhibitions: Soft Core/ Hard Edge

I will be traveling to my hometown to drink beers at the opening of this exhibit(Sept. 10th), to sex-up a panel discussion(Sept. 14th) and hold a happy hour artist talk(Sept. 15th). More info on all that soon. There's a book coming out with the show as well.

softcore/ HARD EDGE
Calgary: September 10th, 2010 to January 22nd, 2011
Los Angeles: August 29th to September 23rd, 2011

Phillip Argent, Tim Bavington, Billy Al Bengston, Karl Benjamin, Ingrid Calame, Alex Caldwell , Eric Cameron, Dave and Jenn, John Eisler, Bradley Harms, Harry Kiyooka, Allison Miller, Lee Mullican, Mark Mullin, Wil Murray, Candace Nycz, Monique Prieto, Laurel Smith

Curated by Marianne Elder & David Pagel

Art Gallery of Calgary
117 8 Avenue Southwest
Calgary, AB Canada
(403) 237-6637

Image: If You Wax It And Tan It The Scars Are Sure To Shine Brightly Tonight, 2010
Acrylic & Polyethylene Foam on Board, 83.5" X 49" X 8" Courtesy: Skew Gallery, Calgary

Skew Gallery - Calgary, Canada

I am very pleased to announce that I will be represented by Skew Gallery in my hometown of Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Look for my work in an exhibition there this summer presented as part of the Sled Island Music Festival.

Image: If You Wax It And Tan It The Scars Are Sure To Shine Brightly Tonight, 2010. 83.5 X 49 X 8 inches. Acrylic & Polyethylene Foam On Boar. Photo by Yannick Grandmont

"Painting: Thick and Thin examines Calgary's art culture"

The Gauntlet, the University of Calgary's newspaper(not the video game), has published an article by Daniel Pagan on Painting: Thick and Thin.
Read it here.

The full interview from August 29th/08:
Daniel Pagan: In some posts on your blog, you talked about how you want to make it clear that you could just as easily be an artist in the exhibition as the curator regarding the Thick & Thin exhibition. So basically, how does it feel being a curator of this exhibition and how does that work contrasts and is alike being an artist? You have to make plans and set up an exhibition of various artists' artworks compared to working on your own personal artwork with your own style.
Wil Murray: It's night and day. I'm not sure which is which.
Working on my own work, and working on my own exhibitions blend seamlessly. From building the supports and making the paintings, to titling the exhibition and attending the opening, an unbroken line exists.
Curating, on the other hand feels like stepping in halfway through, at the point where the paintings are made, and in many cases already shown or owned.
Keep in mind, this is my first experience curating and comparisons to my own shows are inevitable.
This exhibition is the only curatorial project I've ever had in mind, due in no small part to the fact that I could be included in the exhibition just as easily if someone else were doing the curating.
There's a Salman Rushdie essay where he states that you must first learn to tell your own story before you can tell any other. While not a huge fan of his work, I was reminded of that essay a lot over the past months.
I think that all painters look from their own practice outward, so this exhibition was fascinating to me because of some of the commonalities in experience between all of the artists and my own practice. It presented an opportunity not just to exhibit the work of other artists close to me, but to pose some questions about geography, schooling, and their lasting effects on the practices of artists involved and my own too.
I halted my own academic career years ago and have had to find venues for research elsewhere, and embarking on this project is part of that. The most interesting part has been having my own ideas about the themes in the exhibition re-directed by eight different voices.

DP: Being a curator, how does the work at Glenbow Museum compares to SI08: Art + Design Festival, when you put up the Thick & Thin exhibition at the Festival? The Glenbow Museum is a permanent location with its own rules and ideas of what an exhibition should be like, compared to Sled Festival which occurs for a few weeks in one month per a year.
WM: The year long process of getting this show together was a strange one, with many twists to the storyline.
The festival allowed a focus on the exhibition as more of an event, the Glenbow portion allowed a more steady and longer dispersal.
Both shows are a part of the Sled Island Arts portion of the festival. The festival atmosphere in June was very nice, as it brought a lot of artists from all over and music fans to the work in a very short period of time. But, as can happen with festivals, beyond the opening I don't know how much people saw the show when it was at the IKG. I don't lament that, and understand that festivals function in a series of events and I focused on our event, the opening, as much as possible and it worked marvelously with my own show with Justin Evans and other shows by Shary Boyle, Paulo Whitaker, and Terrence Koh.
The Glenbow was a nice change from that. Ryan presented a different piece which needs a longer show, and we focused on making the show one that could see people through multiple visits and viewings. I like the more intimate space of the Glenbow and the museum's history as Calgary's principle museum. It lends some interesting contrast to the themes of the exhibit, and speaks to a very different audience.
The two are different, not many of my Glenbow meetings were had over ten pints at the Ship, but Art has a really nice position in being able to travel very different spaces and still speak loudly. And I'm blessed to have work in the show that speaks very loudly indeed.

DP: This question is more from my curiosity and thoughts that occurred while I did my research on the Painting: Thick and Thin exhibition. What I noticed is how all of the painters and artists who have their paintings up in the Thick & Thin exhibition are all graduates of ACAD and how you know them all and this network. So my apology if my question's not clear enough, but would you say that there is more to the Thick & Thin exhibition themes than just an exhibition of ACAD grads getting together, like a conversation in painting?
WM: Your question brings up what is most interesting to me about curating. I didn't even consider that all the artists in the show attended ACAD when I asked them. While I know that art making in Calgary is equally present outside of that school, my own position in reading art from Calgary is heavily weighted towards ACAD, as that is what I passed through. I had no desire to do a sober assessment of painting in Calgary, nor claim to have found a regional style. I took a very good opportunity to exhibit the artists who've affected me the most. In that, I guess I am still more artist than curator.
Especially pertinent, given that your article will appear in the newspaper of the U of C, with it's own fine arts department.
I think it's best to unapologetic about one's blinders. They are not permanent, and the most valuable part of an exhibition like this one is the dialog possible because of it. I had a view of what made up art in Calgary entering this project which has been changed by my experiences working on it in Calgary, and changed by this show being put together. Art is most exciting when it disallows any fixed points and I am exhilarated by how much this is true of this exhibit.
I'm sure you've read the statements about the themes of the exhibition, and I don't need to re-iterate them. In my own experience, the themes that you start with and where you wind are relational but very different. I've been fascinated to see threads in the work of some of the artists that continue halfway around the room and stop, unshared by other artists who, in turn, share threads with several other artists, but not all either. There's too much in the work of eight artists tenuously tied by geography to make any absolute curatorial statements and I love that. It should always be a bit of a mess, it lets people in a bit more.

DP: So how did you came up with your curatorial statement in the first place and what inspiration did you came up with for that? Especially the "cultural void" term. This is an interesting term since it either implicts that artists in Calgary have full freedom to create what they want to and come up with a variety of ideas without worrying about precedents or how artists are limited in the city, since they have no school of art, no community, no history and no precedents to work with and no inspiration.
WM: That's a very interesting view of the "cultural void" I spoke of. No one else has read a double meaning into it.
I find it strange that everyone does, however, miss the "invented" part of the cultural void I'm speaking of.
Really, it's back to my own position in relation to art in Calgary. I have a Mom who sends me regular dispatches from the newspaper, and many friends who still live in Calgary and I have conversations with them about making work in Calgary, or viewing it, depending on what they do. Really, people in the city, or at least in the representations I have access to, have bought the idea that the city is lacking in culture. Not in number of artists, or funding or in studio space or galleries, but in some strange quantifiable amount of "culture". This often seems tied to a very easy equation of City + Short History + Booming Economy based on morally questionable resources = no culture.
BUT! I have to say, after living in a few cities and being an artist myself, all cities struggle around the arts. No one does it right, because there's no one-size-fits-all. You can live in Montreal and hate the kind of work the city does on festivals. You can live in Toronto and lament the insular art scene.
I look back at Calgary and see a lot of very good artists coming from there.....and many leaving. The city does not lack the raw materials to create great artists who draw from it's history, but rather lacks the patience to recognize that art may not follow the kind of boom and bust cycle that economies do.
Paper tigers are very important, but must be fully slain. And those who aren't making art, but love it, have started to do amazing things(like Zak Pashak with Sled Island, which, will be hated by some as well...this should be encouraged). No city has a cohesive art scene, there's always new threads unravelling and others being spun...that's why art is valuable.
Calgary was great to be from as a painter. Like anywhere deemed conservative and bland, I felt a great freedom to experiment AND find both peers and opponents that I wanted very badly at the time. I left, so have nothing to add except as spectator to the city's development.
I really, really love that art is a guarantee if you have people living together some of the structures that support it may be in danger by a lack of funding or space, bu the practitioners will always keep on, full of hope."

Plop Goes The Weasel

The Weasel is hungry. The Weasel is HUNGER. So the weasel is the rube, and the end. Hunger, the weasel, DESIRE is pressed into the service of the dutiful(DOG - in the name of making his duty easier - the instutionalized violence of say, the Stanford Prison Experiment - movement towards the idleness of Foghorn), and the safe/bored(entertainment in lieu of participation, thin increasing boredom of protection without actual threat, Foghorn's orbit around duty as a negation of his position as FOOD).
The dog is forced to play FOOD.
Foghorn is inevitably FOOD.
The Weasel is HUNGER.

Notes from this morning's viewing. Food remaining a very funny word.
In other news, Nancy Tousley wrote a little review in the Calgary Herald yesterday about my two shows up in Calgary right now.

Daisy Gets Erotik

For those raised where I was, the omission of "i"s dotted with an x will be a disappointment.
Something like a postscript to all the discussion of Calgary art.
I remember coming home from Vancouver one Christmas and hallucinating(I'd take some morphine before flying) or dreaming that I saw Graceland(Calgary artists space, not Elvis' house) from the air as we made the descent into Calgary. I even remember connecting the road to it, seen from the air, to one I used to drive when I worked as driver for my Dad's company.
This is a common dream.
Some missed part of a city I am familiar with. Most often found by continuing down a street I know already, past the furthest point I'd walked. Some calm comfort, some savoury dream-happiness at having found, by no more effort than continuing on, some small part in a familiar place that solicited the same feeling as walking in a specifically unfamiliar place made safe by virtue of your intention to visit it's general location.
But I walked down 14th avenue last time I was home, into a neighbourhood I don't know and it felt nothing like that. I just checked off some box in my head, easily expanded some imaginary map.

Painting: Thick and Thin Post Number Six: Frontier Myth Making

I did an interview with Leah Sandals for the National Post last month about Painting: Thick and Thin at the Glenbow Museum. The interview will be appearing in the paper tomorrow, you can read the online version here: Questions & Artists: Frontier Myth-Making .
Leah's done a fine job of editing my hungover rambling into a cohesive interview. For a little background on the show and some words by the artists about the themes dealt with in the interview, check out these earlier posts. I've tried to develop the complexities of the exhibition's subject matter with the artists in a venue not as touched by word counts, or the editing needs of large publishers or institutions.
Exciting day, a national article published at the same day as Portrayal, a group exhibition I have some work in, opens at the Diane Farris Gallery.

Painting: Thick and Thin Post Number Five

A very nice photo essay of the exhibition "Painting: Thick and Thin" I curated for the Sled Island Festival at the Glenbow Museum has been posted at shotgun-review.ca
For further information on this exhibition, posted on this blog and on Kim Neudorf's Writing Shed In The Woods, click here.

Painting: Thick and Thin opening at the Glenbow Museum

We've got the paintings hung, the lights pointed at them, the chafing dishes counted and the booze ordered.
We're having an opening.
Painting: Thick and Thin at the Glenbow Museum July 25th to September 28th, 2008.
Featuring works by: Kim Neudorf, Miriam Bankey, Dave & Jenn, Ryan Sluggett, Kyle Beal, Chris Millar anbd Patrick Lundeen.
Curated by Wil Murray

Opening reception July 28th, 5:30pm to 8:30pm.
4th floor Gallery, Glenbow Museum
130 - 9 Avenue S.E.
Calgary, Alberta

Painting: Thick and Thin Post Number Four(Continued)

The conversation around Painting: Thick and Thin continues.
Another response, this time by Kyle Beal, to the same questions asked in the first half of this post.
I've included the intro I originally sent with the questions
Wil Murray: My questions about place and me and you seem a little safe tonight. So...for the next can of worms, I'd like to crack open the "regional style" variety. Now, in every interview I've been adamant about this show not being a regional style show, and this has always felt a bit dodgy on my part. Mostly because I dread the association with a group, or a style, but also because I have tried to defer my won responsibility for the show, and thus any accolades for doing so, by making it clear that i could just as easily be an artist in the exhibition as the curator. That said, I'm leery to have an art team, or at least one that has been identified by an outside source. So I'm curious about a few things, and would like anyone willing to speak on this be heard.
How do you feel about the implications of a regional style that this exhibition carries with it?
Kyle Beal:I don't really, a 'regional style' might be better in terms of marketing to some, but I think that the sample is too thin to really make any serious claims to any Calgary school.

WM: Does the naming of a community(or art team) serve anyone beyond the person who named it?
KB: Hard to say, though there is certainly a whiff of careerism with naming. In other cases for other times and other cities the high of such team recognition might be somewhat use full as something to push against, on the other hand who wants to be constantly in opposition?
It makes me think of an old Groucho Marx quip...

WM: How do you feel about my position as outsider to the city I am speaking about?
KB: Well your like and insider on the outside sort of. Which is handy to some degree in that you have a more intimate knowledge compared to a total outsider, along with what might be the advantage of distance. I think that there is value in your having a gap of time and space, it seems difficult to think or reflect a bit when your in the midst of participating.

WM: Who benefits from an exhibition like this tracking a geographic community or style? How do the viewers benefit? The community beyond the artists and curator?
KB: It is just good to look up once in while. I'd compare it to a block party, because you don't always know whats happening or who's living in your neighborhood.

WM: I've been gone for eight years and don't know if the fascination with what is happening in the city goes on past this exhibition. As you might read clearly in these words, I'm struggling a bit with my position in this. I'm not fortune-teller and sometimes don't trust what my hands do while I sleep.

Painting: Thick and Thin Post Number Four

Who can wait until tommorrow, when there's such good stuff in my inbox today(especially after the FFWD review)? The next round of questions, answered by Kim Neudorf(who made my father's favourite paintings in the exhibition). I'll add the other artists as they weigh in on the same questions.

WM: How do you feel about the implications of a regional style that this exhibition carries with it?
KN: My thought is that this exhibition includes artists who for one reason or another, happened to have lived in Calgary and have been found here, like traces. Other layers of meaning will happen when the exhibition is seen in person, adding to any expectations of “regional” and altering long-distance or drive-by experiences of the work.

WM: Does the naming of a community (or art team) serve anyone beyond the person who named it?
KN: A group name can be one way of creating a means to be more visible, for the group and for the namer, and for the public to access the work. I like temporary names that expire or become wizened, or have split-personalities.

WM: How do you feel about my position as outsider to the city I am speaking about?
KN: The circumstance that artists from Calgary, or Canadian artists in general, often no longer live and work where they’re from - this seems very normal and practical now. Though as someone who hasn't lived here for years, you may be able to see things that the Calgary-based artists can be too close to.

WM: Who benefits from an exhibition like this tracking a geographic community or style? How do the viewers benefit? The community beyond the artists and curator?
KN: If there is a tracking of a geographic community or style, I like the idea that “geographic” can also include mediated and metaphoric spaces, like the spaces in-between, described in that great book about Canadian photography – "Faking Death: Canadian Art Photography And The Canadian Imagination". Maybe the point can be about reminding viewers about what is already mediated, such as clichés and conventions about what is “geographic style”.

Ryan Sluggett (answering on the general themes presented in this round of questions):
I did recieve a specific grounding in painting from Chris Cran in
perceptual painting, and in perspective from Eric Cameron. So yes, I
have been formally trained in a regional tradition. I find that a lot
of artists assume that they are homeless these days, ignoring what is
going on in their own backyard by always thinking internationally. But
keeping yourself locked away in your studio without a context for
your work in presents other, perhaps more critical, difficulties. It's
a balancing act. I just hope that art in general will get a little
less international looking. It has a flattening effect aesthetically
and spiritually.
I wonder, is Morandi a regional artist?

*Photo by Ashley Bilodeau

Tasty FFWD Review of Painting: Thick & Thin

Erin Belanger has written a review of Painting: Thick & Thin for FFWD weekly in Calgary.
Read it here.

This leads into tomorrow's blog post exploring my position in relation to naming and tracking art-teams for this exhibition.

Painting: Thick and Thin Post Number Two

Images from the first installment of "Painting: Thick and Thin", the group show I curated for the Sled Island Festival in Calgary, at the IKG:







The exhibition features the work of Kim Neudorf, Miriam Bankey, Kyle Beal, Dave & Jenn, Ryan Sluggett, Chris Millar, and Patrick Lundeen. It will be re-opening for a longer show at the Glenbow Museum Jluy 25th to September 28th.
Photos by me and Kim Neudorf

In Calgary On Research

Somehow Zak got me to do "stuntman" shots last night. It involved snorting salt and squeezing a lemon in my eye and then drinking a tequila shot. Needless to say, I barely tasted the tequila.
I'm here on business, researching the exhibition I am curating for the Sled Island Festival at the Glenbow Museum.
I am now represented in Western Canada by the Diane Farris Gallery in Vancouver. They've posted a very nice page that has a few new things, like the interview I did with Kim Neudorf.

Sled Isand 2008 Press Conference

The cat's out of the bag.
I will be presenting two shows at the Sled Arts Festival.
The first being and exhibition of my paintings with lenticular prints by Justin Evans. The opening for this show will include a performance by Gavin Sheehan, and a screening of a film by Mark Loeser.
The second being an exhibition of current and former Calgarian painters I am curating. Featuring the work of Miriam Bankey, Chris Millar, Dave & Jenn, Ryan Sluggett, Kyle Beal, Kim Neudorf and Patrick Lundeen.
More detail on both soon.

Originally posted by Aubrey at CJSW.com:

"It looks like another banner year for Sled Island, one of western Canada's brightest music festivals. SI '08 will be taking place between June 25th-28th at some of Calgary's finest venues.

At a press conference this afternoon, festival director Zak Pashak, guest music curator Scott Kannberg (Preston School of Industry, Pavement) and other festival participants revealed a glimpse at the initial line-up. It's going to be a white hot June, gang.

Confirmed acts include seminal British punk rockers Wire, Jonathan Richman, The Gutter Twins, Of Montreal, American Music Club, Jose Gonzales, RZA (Bobby Digital), Mogwai, Scott Kannberg a.k.a. Spiral Stairs, No Age, Deerhunter, The Dodos, Drive By Truckers, Extra Golden, Miss Murgatroid & Petra Hayden, Woodpigeon, Beans, Hot Little Rocket, The Broken West, Cave Singers, Wet Secrets, Pride Tiger, Portastatic, Headlights, Ramblin' Ambassadors, Bison, Mother Mother, Elizabeth, Modern Man, Luther Wright, The Whitsundays, Elliott Brood and Carolyn Mark.

The full line-up will be announced on May 1st.

Sled Island's 2008 visual art curator, Wayne Baerwaldt (IKG) spoke about a few exciting exhibitions which will be unveiled to Calgarians during the festival. Works include Peaches' Pit (an installation featuring a walk-through cave lined with hundreds of items that have been thrown to the singer onstage), a series by Wil Murray (featuring works by former Calgarians) and a narrative but abstract series by surf aficionado and Brazilian artist Paulo Whitaker.

Early bird festival passes will soon be available at SledIsland.com. Stay tuned to CJSW for insider information on all things Sled Island 2008!"

Photo:Sled Island Press Conference. Beth Gignac (City of Calgary), Zak Pashak (Sled Island Festival Director), Wayne Baerwaldt (Sled Island 2008 Visual Art Curator), Scott Kannberg (Sled Island 2008 Music Curator, Preston School of Industry, Pavement).