John Murphy

This catalogue is published alongside a split-site exhibition by British artist, John Murphy who has installed work at Ikon Gallery and The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, The University of Birmingham. Murphy’s practice is one of arrangement and intervention.

He suggests that “the role of the artist is as much to find as to make work.” Murphy has selected works from the Barber Institute collection and positions these alongside his own works, in which he re-contextualises found images and text. Through juxtaposition, Murphy creates subliminal associations and traverses disciplines such as painting, music and film.

Murphy draws on the process of accumulation, whereby the viewer retains memories of things that shape perceptions of other things yet to be encountered. Hence this exhibition’s title: And Things Throw Light on Things.