Ethan Murrow
Switch, 2011, graphite on paper, 36 x 48 in.
In The Offing, 2011, graphite on paper, 36 x 36 in.
Hollow Knocking, 2011, graphite on paper, 48 x 48 in.
Polyphonic, 2011, graphite on paper, 54 x 72 in.
Same Echo, 2011, graphite on paper, 2011, 48 x 48 in.
Flue, 2011, graphite on paper, 36 x 36 in.
Will Be Snaring Meteorites – And Win the War Game of the Sky, 2010, graphite on paper, 48 x 48 in.
Artist Statement
All of the projects I am involved in must be seen within the context of collaboration. I work with others whose ideas and contributions influence, inform and guide me. This process began when my wife Vita Weinstein Murrow began filming, photographing and directing me in performances in 2004. Since then we have often worked as a duo, making short videos together. Often, the still imagery we collect forms the source material for large-scale graphite drawings that are obsessive documents of infatuated characters. Vita still assists and collaborates with me during the project development and performance stages as photos are shot to use for source imagery. Our true collaboration, however, revolves around film and video. An ongoing partnership with Vita and Harvest Films of Santa Monica resulted in the short film “Dust,” an official selection of the 46th annual New York Film festival in 2008.
Despite a focus on working with others, the characters in recent narratives have been consistently averse to criticism and assistance. These figures, mostly male, are doomed to failure and prone to dysfunction. “Zero Sum Pilot,” for example, follows one man’s rigorous and suspect training for unknown aerial goals. He obtains sustained movement through the air, at cost. These are cautionary tales, cynical nods to the pitfalls of egotism and obsessive drive. Since I often play the central character in these dramas I intentionally implicate myself in the conflagration that the protagonists create around themselves. I mean to do this with a nod to Charlie Chaplin, who understood that idiocy is inevitable and our own role in it is assured.
he is brilliant