PAST EXHIBITION

The Unknown One: Reimagining the singular as a collection of One

Jasmine Murrell

Coffee Talks: February 6 & 13, 2020 | 4 – 5pm
Conversation: with Curator/Executive Director of No Longer Empty
Christine Licata | Thursday, February 20th, 2020 | 6-8pm

The Unknown One (Reimagining the singular as a collection of One) by 2019 Workspace Resident Jasmine Murrell, opened on February 5, 2020, and was on view through March 14, 2020. This exhibition, comprised of new photographic and photo-sculptural works, explores representation, oral tradition, and the expression of strength through portraiture.

In The Unknown One (Reimaging the singular as a collection of One) artist Jasmine Murrell pays homage to the oldest members of her community. Murrell reframes the traditional portrait using video, photography, printmaking, and sculpture, to present a more inclusive alternative to the classic/postmodern nude figure in contemporary art. Murrell draws from an eclectic range of aesthetic and theoretical influences ranging from abstraction, feminism, post-colonialism, indigenous artisans, Afro-Futurism, Négritude, magic realism, Dadaism, the Detroit avant garde theater, science fiction, and musical pieces such as those by visionary jazz composer Sun Ra.

The exhibition features wall mounted sculptures created through layering photographs of the female body (placed on a variety of substrates including canvas, paper, wood, and fabric) with found objects, and marking their surfaces with silkscreen and paint. The subjects of the photographs are women adorned in headdresses sculpted by Murrell. She describes the headdress as a method of psychological transformation, and the women as being connected through a larger consciousness in their ability to work against adversity.