Featured artist: Graham Murrell
Portrait of Graham Murrell. Credit: Maria Aurelia Riese
With the largest international photography festival, Paris Photo, taking place this weekend, we’re taking a closer look at the work of artist-photographer Graham Murrell who is currently exhibiting in our Art and Rivers exhibition. Murrell is no stranger to Fen Ditton Gallery having shown as part of our Photographers of the 1970s exhibition in April 2020 and went on to have a solo show 20 Years On in June 2021.
Installation image of Graham Murrell’s solo exhibition 20 Years On at Fen Ditton Gallery, June 2021
The former Head of Photography at Central St Martin’s, Murrell established a successful photographic department at the university, going on to teach for 27 years. He left his post in 2000 after he and St Martin’s colleague Kathryn Faulkner completed the Light Spells project at Kettle’s Yard, made possible by the support of the then Director, the late Michael Harrison.
Murrell comments “It was this support that lead to all the opportunities that have come my way over the next 20 years. All of which encouraged me to leave my post at Central St Martin’s and concentrate on making books and exhibitions.”
Murrell photographs exclusively on black and white film, drawn to the gestation period that analogue allows a project to evolve. His projects, both self-imposed and invited, have a deep sense of place and Murrell spends time absorbing himself in the environment before he even unpacks the camera. In a podcast interview Hannah recorded with Murrell in 2020 (you can listen to the interview here), Murrell commented “I can’t go out with my camera and find photographs in the way that you might go out and pick blackberries…”. All aspects of the process; from choosing the film and taking the shot, to the printing, presentation and framing are carefully considered by Murrell, resulting in a body of work that crosses the line between object and image.
Lotte, gallery owner and artist-photographer, says of Murrell’s work: “They are beautiful examples of black and white film photography at its best. His in depth knowledge of photography and the camera’s capabilities allows him to record his subject matter in such a calm and sensitive way and his final works are equally as peaceful and considered.”
Murrell comments: “The four photographs I’m exhibiting in the Art and Rivers exhibition were from a series made as ‘guest artist’ at Allanbank Mill Steadings, some eight miles inland from Berwick-on-Tweed. They are of two of the tributaries that come together at Allanton and flow into the mighty Tweed.
For someone who has worked with film and traditional processes all his life it is so good to find a gallery that is committed to supporting and actively promoting traditional skills in photography and other media through imaginative initiatives”
