| 2nd International Biennial of Young Artists Bucharest | |
| "Art is Always Somewhere Else" | |
| Absent Without Leave | Review by Duncan McLaren |
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Stuart Murray was chosen to take part in this biennial by Dundee based curator Jenny Brownrigg. He took with him 16 completed drawings from the series in progress, Gateway To Work and produced 15 new drawings during the 10 days he spent in the city. |
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Text by Jenny Brownrigg from the catalogue "Had you been keener on very fine draftsmanship or fonder of writing your own social commentaries instead of reporting the words of others you would not be such a successful, Almighty Gods, spy. I wish I was rich enough to pension you to do other reports on people in hospital waiting rooms - in poor pubs and posh pubs - in Merchant City restaurants AND THE KITCHENS BEHIND THEM - in the High Court lawyers' common room - in police stations - newspaper offices - banks - estate agents - advertising agencies - the stock exchange floor - (Glasgow has a stock exchange) and the council corridors." Scottish author Alasdair Gray's on-line reply (30/3/06) after receiving Stuart Murray's publications from the artist in the post. From Gray's blog, 'As the Muse Takes Me'. Who is our society? An ongoing series of mostly self-published books of lo-tech illustrations by Stuart Murray is beginning to build up in sections, a picture of the disparate, fleeting communities that make up the world that this artist encounters. Dictated by dialogues arising from chance encounters or from those incurred during the more prolonged confinements of employment, Murray's work makes visible the hidden undercurrents of the city and the workplace. 'On the Street' (2005) charts the opening conversational gambits of homeless people, drug addicts and prostitutes looking for money or business from Murray as a passer-by. 2005's 'Seven Week Filing Job' is populated with the unwanted confidences of other colleagues, bred by the enforced proximities of a shared workspace, during a dead-end temping job. 2004's 'work (Thirty-Two Post Office Drawings)' is drawn from Murray's ongoing employment as a part-time postman, a position he has continued since working with 'Royal Mail' for several summers as an art student. Each page of Murray's publications denotes an individual, whose features, demeanour and turn of phrase (mostly in Glaswegian dialect) are recorded from memory. What are the general conditions for young artists in Scotland and the UK? Although full-time in their commitment to their chosen vocation as an artist, unless self-employed, sustaining themselves through sale of work, commissions and paid residencies, or financed by other means, they, as individuals, are deemed 'unemployed', by the State. Murray's series of drawings 'Gateway to Work' captures the irony of the Catch 22 situation of the artist in search of a job in a profession too specialist for the UK Job Centre. Up until this Biennial, all of Stuart's work has been about the city of Glasgow in Scotland, where he lives and works. AWOL gives him the opportunity to spend a short period in the run-up to the Biennial, his resulting work occurring from meeting with individual artists who live and work in Bucharest. |
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