Jennifer M Murray

The Queen/Bitch Diptych
charcoal, ink, pencil, and fabric on paper
26 x 50 in.

My work is both an exploration and resolution of my personal observations of the patterns of human culture. I employ a metaphorical language to communicate personal experiences, struggles, desires, and dreams. I place people, animals and objects into folkloric, fable-ish compositions that are abstract and obsessive. In each piece, I strive to identify and exploit the tension that comes from placing images in unfamiliar territory. The animal characters I employ illustrate the trials of being human via their dissociation from the literality of human life. Seeing an animal cast in a human role can lay bare the comedies, tragedies, and irrelevance of events in life that can seem overwhelming. It is my belief that utilizing animal characters, cast in specifically gendered human roles, helps more clearly to illustrate the fragility and often absurdity of the existence of these conventions in the first place. It is my hope that experiencing the tension of my characters’  hard emotions and sisyphean scenarios results in not only resolution, but also revelation, for myself and the viewer also.