Belonging Print

Description

This print celebrates my installation ‘Belonging’ which was commissioned by the Walker Gallery for the 2012 Liverpool Biennial. You can see and read about the installation here http://www.patrickmurphystudio.co.uk/portfolio/belonging/

I made the drawing of the column/plinth in 2012, based on the columns at the Walker Gallery. I loved how the birds seemed both to complement and to contrast their very formal architectural environment and I wanted to try and record this feeling into a simple line drawing that could be turned into a print. For the installation, I created two ‘attitudes’ (positions) one feeding the other looking up, here in the print we can see this combination sat on the column as a simple synthesis of the larger 205 bird installation. I also wanted to celebrate the colour variations used in the installation, seven primary colours based on the ones used in the installation and a series of softer pastel colours make a print edition of 16 variations in total. You can choose which one you like from the menu below.

The Liverpool Biennial is the largest international contemporary art festival in the UK. For ten weeks every two years the city of Liverpool is host to an extraordinary range of artworks, projects and a dynamic programme of events.

Belonging responds to the 2012 Biennial theme of the ‘Unexpected Guest’. I chose the symbol of the pigeon to represent this theme, they are banished from city centres and branded a nuisance. Belonging elevates the very familiar site of pigeons from their everyday urban context; here they are welcomed, colourful visitors given sanctuary during the Biennial. The installation evokes questions about ownership and feelings of being accepted or marginalised. Anthropomorphised, the pigeons can be seen to represent any group that struggles to find a natural home or sense of acceptance in a physical or geographical space. They highlight the very human struggle in finding acceptance or a natural sense of place, whether this be an intellectual or a physical/geographical homeland”