The Art of John Michaels & Darren Murray
Encountering the portrait of Otto and Martha Dix by John Michaels and Darren Murray -- alone and without scientific context in a group show at Lift Trucks Project -- I was struck by a dearth of questions proposed by the curious transcription, the invisible original and the ambiguity of intent. Standing on their own, absent of background on brain function and artistic process, the double images produce their own energetic tensions. Each line in Michaels’s drawing has a markedly different but recognizable counterpart in Murray’s drawing. It is the curious translation of that line between the two that poses such a deluge of questions.
The questions of process, of the relationship of the drawings to each other and to the work from which they were copied, questions drawn from the aesthetic parallels and incongruencies, lead us to the unlikely (in an art gallery) exploration of highly contemporaneous issues such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), brain development and art-as-therapy. The richness of the aesthetic work, the depth of the relationship between each half of the double images, belies the depth of the relationship between visual production and brain development -- and the depth of the complexity of the human mind itself.
Indeed, the drawings of Michaels and Murray stand alone as testaments of artistic process and collaboration. But the possibility of their engaging a greater context, one that includes art historical, scientific and human considerations, is what makes them so remarkable. In collaboration, Michaels and Murray have the possibility of touching on a great breadth of human experience: engaging a breadth of differences in brain function, physicality, creativity, artistry and perception.
Alex Ruhland-Syquia
Curator, Lift Trucks Project
February 3, 2011
Based on an original show-, and with research originating from, “The Unknowing Hand,” curated by Debra Browne. September 2010.
