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Tim Murdoch is an artist whose works range from monumental hand-carved wood and plastic sculpture to site specific and kinetic installations. He graduated from Montserrat College of Art in 1989 and received his MFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2003. His work has been shown at galleries and alternative spaces in Boston, New York and in Europe. Tim has received a Visual Arts Sea Grant from the University of Rhode Island, a Floating Art Grant from the Fort Point Artists Community, a Blanche Colman Award, and in 2011 was a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship finalist. His public art commissions include two for the Massachusetts College of Art and Design- a 24 ft. hand-carved plastic hanging sculptural installation for the college’s new campus center, and a 25 ft. kinetic wall piece for the Spoon Cafe in the college’s new dormitory. His most recent commission in 2012 is a group of hand-carved and welded plastic sculptures for the Constellation Center in Kendall Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 2012, after twenty years living in Boston, Tim moved to San Diego California where he is concentrating on the development of new works.
Statement
I’m interested both in stretching the capability of inherent material properties and in reclaiming natural, organic form from re-purposed utilitarian objects including wood, recycled plastics and electronics. My sculptures and installations show evidence of painstaking, meditative, hand-carved process’s through which they’re made, yet often contain an element of unexpected humor, like a Seussian stripe pattern or a mechanical finger. I try to push the limits of materials, but also the limits for interface with those materials. I’ve created sculptures that transform a viewer’s expectation of space, utilized public store-fronts to confront the general passerby with psychological questions, and harnessed the power of the ocean’s tides to fuel a kinetic installation.
It’s this combination of materiality with the experiment of human-object reaction and interaction that pique my interest in public art- a human, relatable experience. The work is that of a controlled yet mutable landscape between object and viewer, coupled with the intense underlying question of what separates self from other. Through the use of repurposed, hand-worked materials, sprinkled with a touch of humor, my work exists as transformations, investigations and aesthetic public environments.
Recently my installation Emerge, responds to a specific site. The tree and sprout-like forms, hand-excavated and carved from cast off polyethylene natural gas pipes signify the growth that’s to come from the building of a new performing arts center. A new permanent piece for Mass Art, Reflex, consists of an 18 foot tall by 25 foot wide wall of interconnected spring-mounted mirrors. Interactive in nature, the piece is activated by the public sitting on benches in the café in which it’s installed, thereby sending signals to dozens of “reflex” hammers, the sort with which a doctors checks a patient’s knee, mounted behind the mirrors. The hammers strike the mirrors’ springs and a cascade of ripples reverberate through the wall of mirrors – a watery, luminescent shimmer in which the viewer’s reflections are also then skewed and obscured.
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Education
Massachusetts College of Art and Design MFA 2003
La Academia Di Belle Arts, Viterbo, Italy 1994
Montserrat College of Art Diploma 1989
Selected Exhibitions
2016
Can You Dig It, Plummer Park, West Hollywood, CA
2015
Faculty/Staff Annual Show, Boehm Gallery, Palomar College, San Marcos, CA
San Diego Art Prize 2015, New Contemporaries VIII, Valencia Gallery, San Diego CA
2013
Carried Array, La Jolla Athenaeum, La Jolla, CA
Very Comfortable, Boehm Gallery, Palomar College, San Marcos, CA
25th Anniversary Rhode Island Sea Grant, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI
2012
Public Sculptures, Constellation Center Kendall Sq, Cambridge MA
2011
Chain Letter Show, Sampson Projects, Boston, MA
Wood, Higgins Art Gallery, Cape Cod Community College, West Barnstable, MA
2010
Incidents and Reflections, Heidi Kayser and Tim Murdoch
Schiltkamp Gallery, Clark University, Worcester, MA
Yellow Show, Boston Children’s Museum, Boston, MA
The new Media Curious: Experimental Moving Images Festival
Axiom Gallery, Jamaica Plain, MA
2009
Tim Murdoch Installations, Gallery 360, Northeastern University, Boston, MA
See Wall, Fort Point Gallery, Boston, MA
Juried by Raphaela Platow, Director, Contemporary Arts Center Cincinnati.
Fort Point of View, 119 Gallery, Lowell, MA.
2008
Reused Repurposed Reinvented, BHCC Art Gallery, 250 New Rutherford Ave. Boston, MA.
Collision 1101: Superartificial, Axiom Center for New and Experimental Art, Jamaica Plain, MA.
Smaller is Better, Schiltkamp Gallery, Worcester, MA.
2007
Evolving Form, Midway Theater 15 Channel Center Street Boston, MA
Solo Installation Project, Studio Soto, 63 Melcher Street, Boston MA.
Visiting Sculptor, Boston Convention Center, 415 Summer Street, Boston, MA.
2006
Reverberation, Tim Murdoch and Jon Petro, Shiltkamp Gallery, Clark University Worcester, MA
One is Better, Dam, Stuhltrager Gallery, Brooklyn, New York
2005
Inside Out, Sculpture and Installations by Tim Murdoch, Montserrat College of Art, Beverly MA.
Sensations, Paintings by Deborah Davidson and Tim Murdoch, Schlosberg Gallery, Montserrat College of Art, Beverly MA
Visiting Artist – Montserrat College of Art.
2004
Faculty Exhibition, Schiltkamp Gallery, Clark University, Worcester, MA
Touch You, Avery Street Window Installations, Ritz Carlton Hotels, Boston, MA.
2003
Touch Me, Ritz Carlton Hotel, Boston, MA. 150 X 150 ” Mad Dash” Green Street Gallery, Jamaica Plain, MA.
The 14th Annual Benefit Art Auction, Mass College of Art, Boston, MA.
MFA Thesis Show, Stephen Paine Gallery, Mass College of Art,
Boston, MA.
Public Art
Can You Dig it, Plummer Park, West Hollywood, CA 2015/2016
Emergence, Constellation Center, Cambridge, MA 2012
Reflex, Massachusetts College of Art and design, Boston, MA 2011
Tidal Flowers, Fort Point Channel, Boston Harbor 2010
Lifelines, Massachusetts College of Art and design, Boston, MA 2009
Midway Theater Installation, Midway Studios, Boston, MA 2007
Touch Me, Touch You, Installations at the Ritz Carlton Hotel, Boston, MA 2005
Awards
City of Palo Alto, Public Art Pool 2015
City of Philadelphia Public Art Pool 2014-2015
Sand Diego Art Prize, Nominee 2015
Washington State Arts Commission, Public Art Pool 2013-2017
Port of San Diego, TideLand 2, Finalist (defunded) 2013
San Diego International Airport Commission, Finalist 2013
Massachusetts Cultural Council, Finalist, Sculpture Installation 2011
Kennedy Biscuit Lofts Commission, Finalist 2010
Visual Arts Sea Grant, University of Rhode Island 2010
Friends of Fort Point Channel, Public Art Grant 2010
Appleton Mills Art Commission, Finalist 2010
Blanche E. Colman Grant 2009
Inaugural Atrium Sculpture Installation, Mass College of Art and Design 2009
Joan Mitchell Award, Nominee 2003
Berkshire Taconic Foundation, Artist Resource Trust Grant 2002
Liquitex Distinguished Art Award 1989
Yale Norfolk, Nominee 1988