A Pillar of Cloud by day and Fire by night - Catalogue of works + essay

A Pillar of Cloud by day and Fire by night

with essay accompaniment by Ms Alanna Lorenzon

November 14-30, 2013

Opening Celebration Saturday 16 November 2-4pm

Purgatory Artspace, Wed-Sat 11am-5pm

First Floor, 170 Abbotsford Street, North Melbourne (above Gallerysmith)

To acquire work, please email me directly: ja.murnane@gmail.com

They would speak face to face, as one speaks to a friend, 2013

Acrylic and interference acrylic on linen, 122 x 152.5cm.
In the collection of St Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne.

 Nine hundred and sixty two dances of gratitude, 2013

Acrylic and interference acrylic on linen, 152.5 x 122cm, (SOLD) $1800

She is who is an Ark, 2013

Acrylic and interference acrylic on linen, 122 x 152.5cm.
In the collection of St Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne.

An old hope, 2013

Acrylic and interference acrylic on linen, 30 x 60cm, $340

A Pillar of Cloud by day, 2012

Watercolour and pencil on paper, 210 x 140cm, $1500 (unframed)

A Pillar of Cloud by day (detail)

 A Pillar (rose), 2013

Watercolour on paper, 52 x 24cm, $220 (unframed)

 A Pillar (rose and blue), 2013

Watercolour on paper, 52 x 16cm, $160 (unframed)

A Pillar (blue), 2013

Watercolour on paper, 52 x 26cm, $220 (unframed)

 A Meeting, 2013
Acrylic and interference acrylic on paper, 70 x 50cm, $430 (unframed)

Untitled, 2012

Oil and pencil on linen, 122 x 87cm, $1200

 Leading Light (A Pillar of Fire by night), 2013

Acrylic and interference acrylic on canvas, 90 x 90cm (SOLD) $700

The hinter and the heights, 2013

Acrylic and interference acrylic on linen, 51 x 25.5cm $340

Awaited Light, 2013

Acrylic and interference acrylic on linen, 122 x 152.5cm $1800

An Entrance, 2013

Acrylic and interference acrylic on canvas, each 30 x 15cm, (SOLD) $100

A Second Entrance, 2013

Acrylic and interference acrylic on canvas, each 30 x 15cm, (SOLD) $100

A Third Entrance, 2013

Acrylic and interference acrylic on canvas, each 30 x 15cm, (SOLD) $100

Through the day and through the night, 2013
Acrylic and interference acrylic on paper, 50 x 70cm, $430 (unframed)

Fire, Blood, and Love, 2013

Acrylic and interference acrylic on linen, 25.5 x 51cm, (SOLD) $340

The early morning watch, 2013

Acrylic and interference acrylic on paper, 50 x 70cm, $430 (unframed)

A PILLAR OF CLOUD BY DAY AND FIRE BY NIGHT

James Murnane's densely composed paintings are multiplicity unified. The frame of the canvas or paper is the meta-structure containing echoed geometric forms that resemble and differ from one another in equal parts. The simple shapes we meet when looking at his work belie a layered and complex process that the artist conducts when creating a piece. Specific and detailed grids drawn up with architectural precision become receptacles for layers of painterly texture. A time-consuming process, which requires a devoted, steady, willing labour. If you are addressing James' work for the first time can I suggest that you allow for a generous measure in their presence. If you give them this space they will reward you by dancing and shifting as they respond to the gradations of light throughout the day.

Their reflective and multi-faceted surfaces offer a rich, yet subtle visual experience. They sit in elegant contrast to the over-flowing store of imagery we greet each day online. The internet provides an abundance of visual stimuli. We can click next, next, next as though images stretch out in all directions for-ever, in seemingly infinite possibility. Yet the internet's expanse is a flat space that stretches outward not inward and can leave one feeling empty as though much was consumed but not truly tasted. James' work acts as a catalyst for a different more gentle way of looking at images and beyond Art, the world.

"Nine hundred and sixty two Dances of Gratitude", (acrylic and interference acrylic on linen, 2013), at first glance contains a depth of blue and gold tone, but if you then move around the canvas to gaze from a different angle, or if the light from outside fades or brightens purple, silver and white join the play. These colours at first appear contained in small units, yet they are not limited to them. As we view, these shapes begin to mutate across the plane. The painting is a moving pool of water, a sheet of rain, a window. It is a refracted, abstract, luminous space, heavily and securely grounded on the canvas but effulgent, moving, and free. James has painted a paradox.

His work reminds me of some of my most pleasing and curious visual experiences. Recently as I've been taking the tram home these Melbourne Spring afternoons I am struck by how the golden sunlight refracts off the leaves of the plane trees. The glare gets caught on this mass of edges and surfaces turning the tree into a shimmering green and gold flame. I become overwhelmed by the impossibility of understanding all the leaves: their position in space, their colour, their shape, their relationship to one another. I try to imagine how I might draw all these leaves and the difficulty of it takes my breath away. These so many hands breathing in the sky. When these shapes are caught in sunlight they glimmer and move like the phosphenes we see when we shut our eyes and I feel that these trees are a visual puzzle, a representative of something so important, if only I could figure out what it is.

It is a moment of fascination difficult to describe that fills me with a delicate sense of joy raining over my face like a soft shower. It's a joy that comes from a feeling of stretching past a point of understanding. The moment you jump over a deep gap and are not yet sure if you'll land on your feet or fall, a sense of uncertain elevation.

James' painting eloquently translate this mystery of our visual reality. They use simple forms of abstraction to reveal something intricate: the shimmering and changing nature of our visual realm as revealed by light. He draws inspiration from the intricately constructed stained glass windows found in Churches. These windows have the interesting role of dictating light. Crystallising it and beaming it over a mass as they worship. A stained glass window, much like James' creations, make diamonds out of bath water, towers out of soup. They give form to the wash of sunlight, highlighting its magnificence, yet allowing its freedom and movement.

In James' pieces the act of visually perceiving the world in its totality, or trying to understand its many intersections, objects and connections has been replaced with a gentle dapple effect. Many small geometric divisions making a whole, a tangle of moving lights. James gives our eye a pleasing sort of work to do. By looking at these paintings we begin to follow a maze, or a map but the journey isn't arduous and if we let them, the shapes can move over our eyes gently like a massage.

Alanna Lorenzon, Melbourne, 2013.