In the exhibition of photographs by artist, Daniel Murtagh, entitled “Cinema Memory,” curator, John Grant, focused on four bodies of work that Murtagh has been investigating for the last 25 years.
While Daniel Murtagh is best known for his richly drawn color and black and white portraits of men and women, the show continues past these works to investigate the artist’s varied body of work and to reveal a common command of cinematic timing, the landscape, and the street.
Schooled in New York during the Post Modernist heyday of the 1980’s, Murtagh was drawn to film, music, and painting history for his inspiration. Less important to him were galleries filled with one-line expressions of a fleeting and futile attempt to grab a piece of history that has struggled to remain relevant. In his own work, Murtagh sought an intensity in portraiture that emerges when the sitter is fully present.
In his own words, Murtagh, has said “I have always been inspired by painting and I attempt to make images that resonate with the kind of eternal quality and presence that I experience in paintings. I have been drawn to the indescribable quality of light and sense of presence in the work of Vermeer, Carravagio, and Rembrandt. I have also been very influenced by the films of Bergman, Tarkovsky and the Film Noir genre.”
Murtagh’s ability to create images that are a composite of the viewers own memory is uncanny. Each image captures a moment, almost as if from a film you have never seen but remember exactly. The depth and richness of the images that make up “Cinema Memory” lead the viewer through muted and quiet settings where simple, yet elegant light bathes subject and subject matter with time and beauty.
Beauty is a prominent theme in “Cinema Memory” and Murtagh’s focus on beauty transcends the sitter and is invested in objects, light and location. Murtagh has said, “I think there is more to say about what beauty means in the context of art and I try to acknowledge history without relegating everything to some far away precious time. I am interested in the notion of “Romantic Beauty” in my own time. My goal is not to try to recapture “Romanticism” as much as reclaim it for the time in which I live.
John Grant, 2013
EXHIBITION
Cinema Memory, curated by John Grant
Ironton Studio Gallery
Cinema Memory
March 1st – April 6th, 2013
3636 Chestnut Place
Denver C0 80216
USA
