Triumph Of The Theraupeutic at Patrick Mikhail Gallery

Click on the image to see it larger.

"Best Of The Season" at Patrick Mikhail Gallery Opening Friday, December 11th

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"Microcosm" at Patrick Mikhail Gallery, Ottawa

Microcosm:

As we enter a new age of reason where science and technology gain greater importance there appears to be a revival of inquiry into traditional spirituality. We have begun to question our place in the universe and how it relates to the belief systems we have put so much faith into. Faced with this dichotomy, how do we deal with this issue that human beings are a perfect reflection of their creator? Do we still exist as a perfect microcosm of the universe or has this changed?

September 23rd-October 20th

Patrick Mikhail Gallery

"Why I Am Not A Painter" at Patrick Mikhail Gallery Opening November 21st

Why I Am Not A Painter
Wil Murray

November 19th to December 16th
Patrick Mikhail Gallery
2401 Bank Street Ottawa, ON

Opening Reception November 21st, 5:30pm - 9:00pm
(click on image above to view e-invite)

After being named runner-up by the Governor General in the 2008 RBC Painting Competition. After having work in both the Magenta Foundation's Carte Blanche Vol.2: Painting book and exhibition. After curating Painting: Thick and Thin at the Glenbow and the Illingworth Kerr. After spending much of the year painting, I am presenting my solo exhibition of new work, "Why I Am Not A Painter", at the Patrick Mikhail Gallery.
I've named this solo exhibition after Frank O'Hara's poem(below). I've named many of the paintings after really vulgar little-boy grafitti, any Foghorn Leghorn cartoons that feature the weasel, and my family lineage. I've made a whole clan around "Sexe Maniac Maniac Maniac Maniac Maniac", complete with dripping excretions, paint stamens, testicles and falsies. I've delicately folded paint skins like fabric and forced acrylic paint to grow in glazes and brush strokes. This year I’ve thought "That’ll photograph well" while painting and then gone blind.

Why I Am Not a Painter

I am not a painter, I am a poet.
Why? I think I would rather be
a painter, but I am not. Well,

for instance, Mike Goldberg
is starting a painting. I drop in.
"Sit down and have a drink" he
says. I drink; we drink. I look
up. "You have SARDINES in it."
"Yes, it needed something there."
"Oh." I go and the days go by
and I drop in again. The painting
is going on, and I go, and the days
go by. I drop in. The painting is
finished. "Where's SARDINES?"
All that's left is just
letters, "It was too much," Mike says.

But me? One day I am thinking of
a color: orange. I write a line
about orange. Pretty soon it is a
whole page of words, not lines.
Then another page. There should be
so much more, not of orange, of
words, of how terrible orange is
and life. Days go by. It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished and I haven't mentioned
orange yet. It's twelve poems, I call
it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery
I see Mike's painting, called SARDINES.

(1971)

New Painting: Super Special Chat Twenty Dollars

Super Special Chat Twenty Dollars, 2008
Acrylic & Foam on Board, 35" X 47"

New Painting: Terror Bred His Sardonicism....

Terror Bred His Sardonicism That Weasel Sees Him As Food, 2008
Acrylic & Foam on Board, 48" X 54"

In the lead up to my November show "Why I Am Not A Painter" at the Patrick Mikhail Gallery, I will be posting images of a few of the paintings I've completed this year.
Yes, the title refers to Foghorn Leghorn, my ongoing obsession. Click on the image for a larger version.

Whaddaya Mean There's No Ferris Wheel?

I'm off to the 2008 Toronto Art Fair tomorrow. I will eat cotton candy and attend galas. I will ride the Tilta-Whirl and try out my new status as "vedette".
If you're going too, you can find my work in Booth 1020 - Patrick Mikhail Gallery, and me lurking somewhere around the drinks table.

These days, if I wear my best wig, I look like this. Introduce yourself.

or "Wil takes a Holiday from the internet".

I'm moving house, writing a new artist statement, and painting in the studio. I find I don't have much to say, except in conversation. Nothing to shout into the void of zeros and ones right now. It's been a busy summer and I've said a lot.
That means a hiatus on blogging until the fall.
If you want to converse, email me, or catch up with me at the RBC Painting Competition in September, the Toronto International Art Fair in October, or the Patrick Mikhail gallery in November

See you all in Autumn.

Upcoming Solo Exhibition: "The Strange Space That Will Keep Us Together" Vancouver, BC

the strange space that will keep us together

Wil Murray

8 March to 6 April 2008

Opening reception Friday March 7, 8 to 10 pm

the strange space that will keep us together is a survey exhibition of emerging, Montreal-based painter Wil Murray. The exhibition consists of a selection of works made after the July 2003 destruction by fire of his West Pender Street studio space, the historic Pender Auditorium, to the present day. In his work, Murray picks up the dropped threads of abstract modern painting, playfully subverting its dogma, while seriously re-engaging its central themes.

Murray’s work explores the horrors of banal choices. In every choice, there is an element of madness. The most reasoned decision is still a leap of faith into an unknowable future- a leap which is never made alone, as its consequences ripple out. Paint is poured onto a support, slowly built up layer by layer, sections are cut out and tacked onto other works. Marks are made and effaced, at some points visible, at others concealed. A story is told, but the tale is not straightforward. Against mastery, against autonomy, Murray’s process is suggestive of the tension between the terror of the contingency of identity and the spaces caused by incommensurable differences.

Wil Murray was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta. He attended the Alberta College of Art + Design for two years before moving to Vancouver to open a studio. Murray was short-listed for the RBC Painting Competition (2005) and was included in the Magenta Foundation’s Carte Blanche Vol. 2: Painting (2007). Represented by the Patrick Mikhail Gallery, Murray’s work is included in collections in Canada and the United States.

This exhibition is curated by Jacqueline Mabey, a candidate to the Masters Degree in Critical and Curatorial Studies at The University of British Columbia.

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Alvin Balkind Fund for Student Curatorial Initiatives, the Department of Art History, Visual Art, and Theory, and the Faculty of Arts at The University of British Columbia, STRESSLIMITDESIGN, the Program in Canadian Studies at The University of British Columbia, PricewaterhouseCoopers, the Lotus Hotel Limited, and the UBC Alma Mater Society.

—

For further information please contact: Julie Bevan at julie.bevan@ubc.ca,
tel: (604) 822-3640, or fax: (604) 822-6689

Belkin Satellite Gallery Website

Opening Tonight At Patrick Mikhail Gallery, Ottawa

I will be in attendance.
Sick, but in attendance and drinking Cynar artichoke bitter.

Opening Night At The Circus: Highlights Reel One

The best conversation I had all night was with the dude from the National Portrait Gallery(we'd met at an earlier opening at the gallery):



Me: "Hey! Howsit going?"
National Portrait Guy: "Oh, not bad. I'm working at the National Portrait Gallery."
Me: "Dammit... I mean, these are all totally portraits, hey?"
NPG: "Yeah like that 'She's Imaginative' one...."
Me: "Yeah I'll totally show you a picture of that girl...Well I guess I'm not a very GOOD portrait painter."
NPG: "Well, Steven Harper and all his cuts means I don't know what's happening"
Me: "Shitty. So does that mean you're like a teenage girls who has been given a week to live and wants to do all kinds of BAAAAAD stuff. Cuz I'll give you a deal on buying the whole fucking show right now! That'll show him."
NPG: "hahahahaha. Actually they froze my budget"
Me: "Your name is Craig, right?"
NPG: "No, Chris...."
Me: "Shit I gotta get a drink"

We All Agreed We All Had A Smashing Time

Wil Murray Opening at Patrick Mikhail Gallery: November 4th, 2006
More photos on my Flickr Page

From Studio to Gallery In 3 Days Flat

Eyebrows plucked.
Monkey hair trimmed.
Suits neatly packed.
Ties carefully selected.
Dealt with how to refer to my academic education in the press release for the show. "Studied painting at ACAD...."
Last trip to the studio to hold me over until Monday.
I leave for Ottawa tomorrow, for the opening of my show on Saturday.

Real mail, in your mailbox

I've been given 250 postcard invites to the november show. If you would like to receive one in the mail, email me your mailing address.

Wil Murray: All Dressed Up Like a A Little Man

WIL MURRAY

ALL DRESSED UP LIKE
A LITTLE MAN

NOVEMBER 1 TO
NOVEMBER 20, 2006

PMG SECOND ANNIVERSARY PARTY

ANNIVERSARY PARTY / ARTIST RECEPTION
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2006
FROM 7:30 PM

Patrick Mikhail Gallery
2401 Bank Street
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
1 800 388 3298

New Studio Photos

Some recent photos of finished work in the studio.
More Images at Wilmurray.com and Patrick Mikhail Gallery

Wil Murray, 2006 (12" X 12")


Wil Murray, 2006 (12" X 12")


Wil Murray, 2006 (12" X 12")


Wil Murray, 2006 (12" X 12")


Wil Murray, 2006 (28" X 48")