“Once I have a collection of materials which I think hint at a theme, I allow the images to make their own connections and dialogues. For around a week, the components are constantly in flux – rearranged, photographed, shifted - until they find their place together. It is by this process that they are organized into a composition. The end results are usually a surprise to me.” – Gardner Muirhead
Since 2005, Muirhead has been incorporating Japanese woodblock printing into his work. For this new exhibition, he has experimented with making mixed media works combining woodblock printing, lino printing, photography and found imagery.
These influences translate in his work to a tightly considered approach to colour, surface, balance and space, which reflects his interest in modernism, typography, German cinema and Cold War aesthetics. Much of the found imagery in Muirhead’s work is from flea-markets, particularly in Berlin and it is informed by a collector-curator’s passion for print culture, especially of the mid 20th Century: magazines, cinema posters, street signage, redundant text books, window displays and advertisements; all these and more are reflected in Muirhead’s assemblages and collages.
To see the exhibition online, click here.