In Life Review

In Life Review"

Exhibition dates: February 10 - April 1, 2017

A “life review” is a phenomenon widely reported as occurring during near-death experiences, in which a person rapidly sees much or the totality of their life history in chronological sequence and in extreme detail. For his second solo show at moniquemeloche, Ben Murray continues his investigation into the aesthetics of memory with new paintings that explore this mortal notion using a cinematic lens, as if life itself were a screenplay to be viewed before the final frame.

Multi-layered, semi-representational paintings of recollected places and events, the works on view comprise the moments that shape a lifetime, mundane or otherwise. Void of characters or dialogue, these compositions are constructed in a durational framework, simultaneously conveying the multiple frames of lived experience in reverse. Images appear, dissolve and become filters for one another; light is shifting and transitional; time is elongated and compressed. Here, Murray performs the role of the projectionist, transforming all semblances of the everyday into mere apparitions on the painterly screen.