Warren Murfitt

The Contemporary Art Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by three Vancouver artists: Warren Murfitt, Derek Root and Steven Shearer. Using a variety of media, these artists have in common a visual reference to forms of abstract art from the 1960s: Hard-Edge, Op and Minimalism. Their approach to this visual language, however, is derived from different sources and none of these artists was fully aware of the other's work before this exhibition.

There are tendencies internationally toward re-examining the language of abstract art from various points of view. The artists in this exhibition are not nostalgically yearning for the work or ideas of the 1960s. They have used the strong visual forms of abstraction to incite an immediate response by the viewer; there is the promise of a purely visual experience, but there is, at the same time, something unsettling. Murfitt's op-ish patterns look abstract but are deceptively familiar; Root's pristine appearing surfaces are layered with nuances and variations that arise from his process of hand-crafting; Shearer's systematic patterns are disrupted by texts that speak of insecurity.

This exhibition carries on concerns about abstract art that have been explored in two previous 1994 Contemporary Art Gallery exhibitions: Mina Totino, Paintings; Helmut Dorner, Under The Surface.

Essay: “Warren Murfitt, Derek Root, Steven Shearer,” Keith Wallace

A large sculpture in a gallery space. It is made of a wood and metal structure and shows an enlarged wood pattern in the interior. This inside part is lit in bright-blue.

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A large painting mounted on a white wall. The painting has a yellow background and a gridded dot pattern. Most of the dots are white, but some red and black dots are spread throughout.

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The corner of a gallery space with various artworks mounted on both walls. The works are paintings on square/rectangle canvasses. Many of them are one single colour but two have a dotted pattern. 

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A gallery space with artworks on the walls. The work in the centre is a large sculpture made of a wooden frame. The opening of the structure shows a large wood-pattern lit in bright blue.

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3 artworks on wood panels mounted on a white wall. They show black geometric patterns on natural wood with text. The work on the left has a grid pattern that reads "learn the truth I tried to hide." 

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The corner of a gallery space with 3 artworks visible. One is a wooden structure that shows a large wood pattern inside, in blue. The other 2 works are wood panels with black geometric patterns. 

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Warren Murfitt, Derek Root, Steven Shearer

The historical situation regarding the subject is represented in the exhibition by Margaret Waylor's work on Palladian villas (the first modern detached houses). One of her works, in which the villa is drawn directly onto gyprock, is viewed through the other, a three­ dimensional cement abstracted villa resting on a "kitchen" table with folded down "Palladian" wings. The relation between topography and farmland development is represented by Robert Linsley's paintings of exurban development in the Fraser Valley, and by Amy Jones' new work in which a large (two meter high) map of the Fraser Valley is laminated onto plywood and cut to the outline shape of a dining-room set in front of a picture window thereby setting up an oscillatory echo between what "was" and what “is".

Bill Jones and Nancy Shaw explore the problems associated with the conflicting desire to be in (secure) and out (free) through the formal device of reflections registered photographically.	This is effected in Shaw's case through the use of an actual window frame, and in Jones' with glass over the photographed windows, so the gallery reflections act as a palimpsest to the already existing mirror (the photographed window).

The materialistic over-abundance that characterizes suburban growth is clearly presented in the piece Greg Snider will show — a long drawing/collage in which two double garages form mirror images of excess. (There are two of "everything" within ten feet of each other.)

Warren Murfitt's *Four Model Homes* are plinth mounted, highly abstracted representations of the "object of desire" — a critique of the pseudo-variation offered to acquire “difference." Todd Davis and Dan Graham here develop the formal nature of the "row" and its similarity to minimalist sculpture. Davis' photocopy enlargements from single "tourist" slides into a complex of 11 by 17 inch “shingles" depict the European model of a "normal" development, the contradictions of which are revealed through the use of a text overlay. Dan Graham, who along with Ed Ruscha, can be said to have founded this entire area of artistic practice in the late 1960s, will show three photographs from the enormous body of suburban work he has produced.

The notion of detachment, and the privacy that theoretically comes with it, is the operative metaphor in *Some Detached Houses*. The detachment and newly found distance between people that resulted from the flight to the suburbs is reflected in the detachment, distancing and “objectivity" that permeates the work in this exhibition. The show will be an important meeting of work in an important area of artistic practice. To make an exhibition out of such material constitutes, of course, yet another form of “detachment.”

Essay: “Introduction,” Bill Jeffries

A large photo with 2 smaller photos on either side, all in natural wood frames, on a wall. All the photos show black and white landscapes with small buildings in the corner, and phrases in black text.

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A gallery with several artworks. On one wall there are 3 paintings, on the other there is a painting collage. IN the centre, 4 grey plinths show small metal house-like forms on them.

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A closeup of 4 unframed photos on a white wall. One has an apartment complex with a fence, one shows townhouses, one has similar houses in a row, and one shows a playground in front of apartments.

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A small glass window with white panes rests on a white plinth against the wall of a gallery. The window appears to reflect a living room with a large window and furniture. 

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A closeup of 6 unframed black and white photos on a wall. The photos show houses of various sizes in different neighbourhoods. Some have trees in front, and some are in large fields, etc.

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3 paintings mounted on a white wall. One shows a yellow field with houses in the background. One shows a person sitting at a desk with a book. One shows an orange field with houses in the distance. 

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A painting collage on a white wall. The painting shows 3 cushioned chairs and a table, textured with, and layered in front of, a map showing roads and rivers. 

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Two objects mounted on the wall of a gallery. One is a pale-yellow paper in a dark-green rectangle. Below, there is a light box in the shape of a triangle, showing an image of a wide road with trees.

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Robin Collyer, Bill Jones, Todd Anthony Davis, Greg Snider, Robert Linsley, Warren Murfitt, Amy Jones, Dan Graham, Margaret Waylor, Ed Ruscha, Nancy Shaw

Some Detached Houses

On view at the Contemporary Art Gallery is an exhibition of new sculptural works by three Vancouver artists: Warren Murfitt, Daniel Congdon and Daniel Laskarin. Each of these artists have produced exquisitely crafted objects. Their works make reference to minimalist sculpture and sculptural practice, and employ construction, cinematic and architectural materials and ideas.

Warren Murfitt’s interest in the meaningfulness of both artist’s and construction materials will be the focus of his new work. Murfitt uses aluminum railing and copper in his sculpture *Speak*. The refined geometry of Daniel Congdon’s wall mounted piece retains the gestalt of Minimalist sculpture. Congdon furthers his ideas on the mechanics, both experiential and concrete, of cinema. Daniel Laskarin’s sculpture consists of suspended marble and granite slabs held by steel cables and mounted on rock. The sculptural elements physically and thematically evolve around the image of Gustave Courbet’s *The Stone Breakers*.

Essay: “New Sculptural Works,” Merike Talve

A closeup of a sculpture on a wall. The work is made of a long rectangular metal grid, with 3 diagonal lines across the middle squares. Inside, there is a black plastic sheet and a sideways triangle. 

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A closeup of an artwork in a gallery. The work is made of a low copper box with a tall silver metal rail attached to the top of the box. Behind it, a work mounted on the white wall is visible.

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A closeup of a sculpture in a gallery. It is made of several marble slabs stacked vertically and horizontally, resting on a pile of large rocks. The pieces are attached by metal wire and hardware. 

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Three sculptures in a gallery. The one in the foreground is tall, made of marble and large rocks. Another is mounted on the wall, and the third is a copper box with silver railing on top.

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Two sculptures in the hallway of a gallery. One is made of a low copper box with a tall silver railing placed on top. The other is a long metal frame with a horizontal triangle form in it.

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Warren Murfitt, Daniel Congdon, Daniel Laskarin

New Sculptural Works

The present book was published on the occasion of the exhibition "New Sculptural Works" by Warren Murfitt, Daniel Congdon, and Daniel Laskarin at the Contemporary Art Gallery on January 4 to 29, 1988. Includes text by curator Merike Talve.

Warren Murfitt

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