ethan murphy

Front & Back explores the relationship between image and loss through the reactivation of the artists’ decaying family album, initially discovered in the basement of Murphy’s childhood home while searching for objects that belonged to his late father. The 4x6 inch prints were wet and stuck together in block formations while the images on the surface were largely destroyed, with the exception of some image fragments. Even these fragments were barely legible and so have become abstractions of the indexical image they once were.

The artists’ interest is in reconsidering the functionality of these photographic prints within contemporary visual culture. Personal loss has made Murphy reassess the photographic object as a precious entity of memory, which allows him to encounter the image of a loved one who is no longer alive contained within a decaying object.

The decaying family album becomes source material to make work about loss, both physical and psychological. Its functionality changes as the images and objects are inherited, then presented in a different context. This work examines the way in which the value and meaning of the physical photographs shift by the way they are repurposed by the artist. It simultaneously documents the process in which the source material undergoes in order for it to be repurposed. Front & Back is less about trying to produce something definitive but instead questions the relationship between image and object. It examines all of the material and information available that describes the transformation of both image and object.