~LUKE MURPHY . . UNHAPPY USERS – OPENING PIX

LUKE MURPHY – ‘UNHAPPY USERS’
opened FEB 20, 2016
5 the show runs thru MARCH 20, 2016
CANADA, 333 BROOME ST – LOWER EAST SIDE, NYC

more: background
https://www.canadanewyork.com/exhibitions/2016/unhappy-users/

PIX FROM THE OPENING, SAT FEB 20, 2016


LUKE MURPHY, and TYSON REEDER, at the opening.


ROB HULT, SYRETTE, and SAM WILSON.
Nicholas Hult and Sam Wilson, along with 2 others – are co-onwer/directors of Klaus Von Nichtssagend Gallery.
Syrette Lew is a contemporary furniture/jewelry/lamps/interiors designer – her studio is quite lovely, cutting edge and very chic, it’s called . . Moving Mountains.
see: MOVING MOUNTAINS – mvngmtns.com


artist MELISSA BROWN, of the famed underground artist casino betting, performance games.


ERIC MONTY . . been a fixture on the Lower East Side hood, from way back in the day, Pen & Brush (1989), Rivington School and Gas Station.


OLIVIA PLATO, a British visual anthropologist currently here on a visit, she told me my thrift shop, Jersey City Heights (!!) rescued, $2 hand-woven bag – was actually quite a nice piece of authentic folk art, and that it was made by the KOGUI & ARHUACO indigenous peoples of Columbia, South Amercia – awhose culture is old, very old .. Pre-Columbian.
she knew because she had just spent 4 years living & studying among them.
how profoundly & powerfully interesting, is the world we move through, even without (formal) Shamans, is all I can say.
or: some ‘unhappy’ user donated this – and I found it.
go figure !! the ultimate soul sister DIY . . lost and found !!

talking about . . ‘thrift’ shops and ‘ancients’ bye the way . . does ‘Spring Break 2016’ – ring a bell, a faux ‘thrift ship’ . . bell.
if you follow the art scene, you’ll get the reference. if not, don’t worry about it.
it’s not that . . important.


I knew my hand-woven & very sturdy bucket bag was special, but I didn’t know it came from such ancient native roots. well, it found a good home. someone must have received it as a souvenir, I read these bags are the now the ‘symbol’ of Columbia, and being clueless – they donated it to the local Salvation Army, where I picked it up for all of $2 brand new. at least they didn’t just chuck it.

it’s kind of funnie, profound, and karmic . . . because Luke’s show has a lot of ‘weaving’ in it. both metaphorically, the web !! digital social media etc etc, and technically . . the interlocked coding of the LED lights, the inter-wovenness of the ‘found’ keyboard tunnel . . . but also literally, in a design . . to be revealed !!


Luke Murphy’s paintings on canvas cascade down the ‘west’ wall of the gorgeous double height front room of the new Canada gallery. yes, it’s the first time I’ve been there.
west wall, yes . . they had a seeking, rushing, profound depth to them. philosophical cries out – for civilization, and human-ness amongst the seemingly random scribbles. and symbols. and gestures, and color darts.
in short, code . . very human: bio vs gesture vs symbol vs past vs future.

communication, and transition – are key words I would use to describe the heart and soul of Luke’s work. I’ve been following his work with great passion & devotion . . every since I just happened to back into his first solo exhibit at a very nascent Canada gallery, on Lower Broadway, in Tribeca – in the basement of a Josh Harris / Pseudo experimental project building, must have been – sometime in early 2000.


Luke is a very multi-talented, uber complicated kind of guy. a big technical whiz, a big thinker.
his shows are always very, vastly different, he’s also really really into graphic design, and cutting edge communication. as well as . . the mysteries of our deep past, thoughts about the infrastructure of the deep future / cosmos.


LUKE MURPHY, ‘I Need 2 Always Make Back-Ups’, 2015.
acrylic on canvas. 84 x 72 in.


LUKE MURPHY, ‘User Explains Selfie to Other User-Friend’, 2015.
acrylic on canvas. 70 x 58 in.


LUKE MURPHY, ‘Users Color Theory – No blue’, 2016.
acrylic on canvas, 58 x 72 in.


Luke told me the ‘N’ is a symbol or bookmark for: “any number’ . . . in an equation or theory, or code. nice calligraphy hand skills, bye the bye.
he also told me ‘N’ could stand for NANCY, and still mean the same thing, lol – and . . why, not ?


and then we ‘transition’ through the gallery, through time, and through plastic space – in his tunnel of ‘found’and, looks like discarded . . keyboards. warped, and interlocked, frozen into a greater whole. yes they are quite literally . . WOVEN.
and, yes they are metaphors. and, yes, tunnel of love – did come to mind.
and yes . . the sure to come days of purely mental telepathic or somehow otherwise transmitted comunication, as in: no keyboard . . keyboards are obsolete and used for re-cycled building materials ?
did associate . . too.


everybody was captivated walking through this. that’s why I’m saying, go see it.
it’s an . . ‘experience’.
but, damn I wonder if it’s . . for sale ?
Damien Hirst, look out . . and you don’t need a haz mat team to maintain it.


like I said, w-o-v-e-n.
ancient pre-Columbian skills meet future obsolete . . now !! that is a trip though the looking glass, or what ?
it’s almost a keyboard weaving / time travel machine.
if you push it, and you can. ‘transition’ is at your finger tips.


the back room was home to an array of varying, small animated LED light boxes, each plugged into the electric sockets on the bottom of the walls.


LUKE MURPHY, ‘You Win!!!’, 2016.
LED matrix panels, Rasberry Pi microcontroller, software. 20 x 20 in.
edition 1/3.
absurdist and strange – this one was about . . 2 guesses !!
weaving !! how comforting, especially . . with that little smiley face.
animated infra structure, hard working code, graphic design interface, pattern, design, and – not to forget . . human/bio humor smack dab – in the middle of a world of increasing computerization & robots, even artificial intelligence ?


straight angle . . weaving.
as simple and basic as you can get.


wa-wa-weaving.


LUKE MURPHY, ‘Emojies$EverXoX’, 2016.
LED matrix panels, Rasberry Pi microcontroller, sofware. 5 x 20 in. edition 1/7.
love & kisses – the most basic human code.


LUKE MURPHY, ‘Departure’, 2016.
LED matrix panels, Rasberry Pi microcontroller, software
20 x 20 in.
jump on that plane.


LUKE MURPHY, ‘What Color’, 2016.
LED matrix panels, Rasberry Pi microcontroller, software.
25 x 20 in.
‘EN JE’ . . . ?
wtf.
that’s my BEST FRIEND, ERIN JENSEN’S . . USER HANDLE on IG !!
fer real !!


LUKE MURPHY, ‘Bad pixel’, 2016
LED matrix panels, Rasberry Pi microcontroller, softwarw
20 x 20 in.

ha ha the . . ‘bad pixel’.
you get it – right ? the unhappy user – comes to mind.
well, and even in traditional weaving, as opposed to weaving by lights, colors, and code . . . there are always small mistakes . . dropped stitches, color errors, etc etc, and to soothe the distraught weaver – it’s considered . . a sign of god.
it’s called . . God’s hand.
only God is perfect. to err is human. our early Shakers & Quakers and the pilgrims they sprung from used to insert ‘manufactured’ errors, on purpose – because pride was sinful.
maybe our computers & phones & hard drives are just like us.
and way – more than we give them credit for.

sometimes even our various digital devices skip a beat, run out of memory, degrade, de-charge, break down, or just plain fade way.
yes, and thus: the unhappy user . . feels like an . . old time ‘loser’.
lol – light up my imagination & chart the path . . Luke Murphy.

PHOTOS: NANCY SMITH