ENTROPICANA A SEARCH FOR SOUL

from 2021 Hannah Murray: Entropicana Publication

HANNAH MURRAY ENTROPICANA

There is a great power to be realised when the human mind is jolted out of its comfort zone, Hannah Murray seeks to achieve this through her cacophony of images that defy logic yet somewhere beneath the surface actually make sense. For many of the works in Entropicana the audience can discern mimetic rendering of exquisite plants native to the tropics and inorganic objects which have symbolic references which we carry in our minds as familiar icons.

Hannah’s probing of what it means to live and love in the tropics sits at the root of this exhibition. Her affinity with painting objects and her passion for the genre of still life is clearly realised in many of the works, however, it is what she does with these ‘chance encounters’ that is what makes this exhibition interesting.

As a studio artist, trained at James Cook University and one who has continued to be employed in the arts with experiences in both the gallery system and in education, Hannah has maintained her commitment to practice and the production of professional artworks. This commitment to practice ebbs and flows throughout her career pushing her deeper into an exploration of tropical space, as she seeks to probe the issues that are important to her. Her artist statement links social and environmental issues and references the history of art, but beneath the theory and philosophical positioning dwells a total commitment to artistic practice.

When one visits the artist’s studio, one is placed in the position of marvel. It is her Wunderkammer – a space she enters surrounded and confounded by objects, books, artworks in various stages of completion, sketches, experiments, but ultimately her studio is a womb. A place where ideas are conceived, tested, pushed, let stand, reworked and eventually resolved. This is a studio which enables Hannah to think, to contemplate and to create.

To take artworks from this furtive creative place and display them within the sanitised white cube of the gallery, often removes the passages of development, excitement, torment and the rush of adrenaline as works begin to find form - cementing ideas into images that can be shared beyond the studio. But there is that moment when the work has to leave its womb and be born in the public eye. Visiting Hannah in her studio late in 2020 it was obvious the moments of doubt that invaded her psyche as deadlines loomed as the work was developing within its safe space, but with the anticipation of its imminent exposure constantly undermining the artist’s confidence. Despite the technical fluency which will delight audiences, there is always this reticence and insecurity that makes Hannah an artist worthy of public exposure. Despite the fluency there is a dark side, her works often remind us of icons, highly charged images with a power that exists between the objects within the picture plane. This energy between tropical floral emblems and inorganic objects such as shells, sets up a dichotomy, one which harks back to grand traditions of symbolic objects within a picture plane, reminiscent of the Dutch still life artists. For Hannah this vanitas exposes the mythology of the tropics - the cliché pleasure, colour and fecundity associated with ‘paradise’ which is often superficially presented for the consumption of those living outside of the tropics. Whereas, Hannah Murray, a girl from Ayr, maintains commitment to North Queensland and knows full well that the tropics are far more than an advertising billboard.

Her sensitivities towards the plight of the tropics constantly envelops the works as we peer beyond the delicate petals of the frangipani, orchids and the tantalising leaf displays of the Alocasia and Dieffenbachia and hit the hard surfaces of Nautilus, Cypraea and Lambis. Yet the figure ground relationship is ambiguous, as most works float within a paradoxical background. As we look beyond the obvious there is a nebulous state at play here, for what supports these beautiful iconic objects in terms of nourishment, protection or purpose? Within this framework Hannah Murray draws back on the traditions within painting and image making, which draw the viewer beyond the surface. The ‘chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on a dissection table’ (Lautréamont 1868) was the ultimate ambiguity celebrated by the Surrealists a century ago. The Surrealist Manifesto written by Andre Breton attempted to make what appeared to be a frivolous pursuit of virtuous painting into a way of creating a new reality for people to explore the world without the constraints of public conventions. The works presented within Entropicana attempt to go further and prick the consciousness of the audience into a state of play that is not quite right. We see beauty has a second side, for all things that bloom do ultimately wither and the moment of this realisation becomes the hinge between ‘what is and what will be’.

Hannah references the Japanese tradition of Ukiyo, or ‘floating, fleeting or transient world’, this admission seems ever so more poignant in 2021 with such technological advances to send devices into deep space, create machines that work at speeds and capacities far in excess of human capability, yet we continue to exploit the natural world that provides us with resources to survive. The spectre of the COVID 19 pandemic that rages through countries both rich and poor, developed and developing yet not discriminating against either is more than a metaphor for contemporary life. Is there a reference to the excesses of the new millennium, our wilful exploitation of the land and sea, our antipathy for enduring cultures and our inability to discern what is truly a need – and not merely a desire.

The works on display are not purely for pleasure and to satisfy the capricious gaze of the eager investor, they draw a line in the sand to encourage us to reflect on our tropical world and on the importance of artists and other creatives who draw attention to things that we may not notice in our everyday lives. Hannah’s work continues in the vein of the Dutch genre painters, still utilising those tricks of Trompe-l’oeil and investing the mythological energy that the Surrealists conjured with their juxtapositions of disparate objects but she does it within a frame of the 21st century where technology, commercial imperatives and a search for soul are all pervasive.

Marg and Stephen Naylor

[Marg Naylor, James Cook University Art Collection Project Officer]

[Professor Stephen Naylor, Chair Academic Board, James Cook University]

A dweller on the threshold of paradise 2021 Acrylic on board, 50 x 55 cm