About The Exhibition
Belfast Exposed Photography was pleased to present an exhibition of work by Wendy McMurdo. The show consisted of nine images from her on-ongoing series of children at play or learning. The photographs are drawn from a number of projects, entitled The Science Museum (2000), Museum Visits / Drama Projects, Young Musicians and In a Shaded Place, the digital and the uncanny (1995).
Wendy McMurdo's images hover between fact and fiction, representing moments of play or reverie where children are isolated from the adult world. McMurdo combines traditional photography and digital technology to create a deliberately 'out of sorts' space that acts like a psychological imprint of childhood memory. Her work references conventions in historical portrait painting and has the formal look of dramatic set pieces. McMurdo manipulates her images using digital techniques in order to focus on the emotional aspect of the subject, deliberately removing or emphasising certain elements to undermine the apparent objectivity of the photographic image.
The Artists
Wendy McMurdo
Wendy McMurdo was born in Edinburgh in 1962. She studied fine art painting at Edinburgh College of Art. In the mid 1980's she studied at the Pratt Institute in New York and completed her M.A at Goldsmiths College in London in 1993, when she was awarded a Henry Moore Foundation Research Fellowship. From 1998-2000 she was appointed Leverhulme Special Research Fellow at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee. Recent commissions include the Science Museum in London and The Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh in association with the Roslin Institute, Edinburgh.
In 2001 the Centre for Photography in Salamanca, Spain published a monograph 'Wendy McMurdo' with essays by Francis McKee and Gilda Williams. Her work, and writings on her work, are included both in Phaidon's recent 'Art and Photography' and Thames and Hudson's 'Photography and Art' from the World of Art series. Her practice has been the subject of documentaries for BBC 2 and Channel 4 and is included in The British Library Sound Archive's Oral history of British Photography.
Wendy McMurdo currently lives and works in Edinburgh and is represented by the Andrew Mummery Gallery, London. Her work has been included in group exhibitions and public collections throughout the UK and overseas.
Acknowledgements
Belfast Exposed Photography would like to acknowledge support for this exhibition from The Changing Room gallery, Stirling.