Objects and Their Fields

Erin Murray

April 20 - May 25, 2024

Opening Reception: Saturday, April 20 | 4-6 pm

Open Saturdays from 12-5pm or by appointment

Peep Projects is pleased to present Objects and Their Fields, a solo exhibition by Erin Murray. Executed in graphite and ink on canvas, with drawing extending to canvas-wrapped frames, these new works present an especially tactile experience of Murray’s abstractions based on architectural and design details.

Referencing paper models constructed in the studio, Murray employs breathable illusionistic space in her graphite drawings, freeing her subject from its original context while retaining a sense of light and atmosphere. Laid over swathes of richly gradated color and employing a full tonal range, her works bring sublime characteristics to everyday design moments.

Acknowledging the sensory and psychic phenomena that accompany all of our interactions with objects, Murray addresses the subject as well as the space between it and the viewer. She considers the work to embody an imagined interaction between a human psyche and a detail that has happened to capture its attention, an object with its own mysterious yet certain entanglement with human history. Perhaps it is a mundane and predictable history–but it need not be grand to be useful. In that moment, the object brings its baggage into orbit with the human psyche, penetrable in its state of reverie. And so begins the possibility of new thoughts and new things.

Wrapped canvas frames offer a foil for formal play while also bleeding the image into the world and highlighting its permeable nature. These works encourage us to slow down and examine the subtleties, quiet drama, and embodied nature of our surroundings, and to recognize the unique reciprocal relationship therein.

This exhibition is part of (re)FOCUS 2024: a citywide festival in collaboration with Philadelphia's visual arts institutions and galleries recognizing women-identifying artists.