Clive Murphy

Ireland

In my work I attempt to examine the minutiae of life, the overlooked everyday elements which make up the fabric of existence, yet are caught only in the corner of the eye. I take discarded materials, such as ripped-up cardboard boxes, fallen sheets of condensed billboard paper, old umbrellas, catch-penny trinkets, doodle-pads from paint shops, and highlight and elevate them in an effort to compare these finds with the monotonous trudge of everyday life.

My latest body of work is entitled Inflatable Cardboard Boxes. These are found cardboard boxes of different origins, dimensions and styles. The shapes are modified and reassembled to refer to the basic shape of a canvas. They are then fitted with a rubber valve and made airtight, and a small concealed wooden back panel in installed, allowing them to be hung on a wall. The pieces are then inflated, making them bulbous and taut.

The concept behind these works revolves around the elevation of a very mundane, everyday element of modern urban life from its station as discarded packaging to a work of art hanging on a gallery wall in a new hybridic manifestation to be reappraised for every mark, stain or rip incurred along its journey from the assembly line. By inflating the boxes I have combined, and, in a way, superimposed, the connotations and properties of a very ordinary scruffy cardboard box with those of typical kitsch, shiny plastic inflatables found on the high street, resulting in a bizarre and strangely humorous creation.

(Text: heroes + holies catalogue, 2002)