Artist Presentation #1: Wendy McMurdo

Wendy McMurdo utilizes technology and traditional photography to create pictures of child subjects who appear unattached from their environments, and even slightly “alien like”. Her work demonstrates a postmodern verisimilitude between truth and fiction, also known as tableau photography. Author Charlotte Cotton describes this medium as having,

“…visualized collective fears and fantasies with an emphasis on the uncanny, the use of youthful protagonists has been especially prevalent” (Cotton 64).

McMurdo has been involved with many projects, publications and exhibits. She is most famously recognized for her self-titled publication, Wendy McMurdo, which was published in 1998. McMurdo has been published in collections of contemporary photography works, including David Campany’s book titled, Art and Photography . Her work has appeared in exhibits around the world. A particular series, “Through the Looking Glass: Childhood in Contemporary Photography”, was shown at the Louis Glucksman Gallery in Cork, Ireland in 2005. (http://www.wendymcmurdo.com)

Below, we view McMurdo’s work with a postmodern lens and an insight to her special medium.

Using new media technology, McMurdo is capable of creating tableau photography. Her work often features the use of a doppelgänger, which is a German word used to describe the look-alike of a person. This form of tableau art is exemplified in the Verizon Wireless Campaign, “Dead Zones”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57Us8Q10Sks

Continually, we see McMurdo’s work lacking the emotion in which we connect as childish or playful. The point of her focus is to view children unattached within adult environments. Instead, McMurdo shows children as beings that probe, question, and challenge the environments that surround them. Additionally, all the subjects of her work portray the critical “gaze”. In an interview with Sheila Lawson, McMurdo states,

“If one of the figures had been looking out of the group toward the viewer they would be very different images. They only look inward, toward the group; their gaze(s) never meet and in a way the image itself becomes sightless” (Brittain 254).

McMurdo continues to produce work that exemplifies contemporary art theory and incorporates the use of technology. While challenging the ideology of youthful subjectivity in art, McMurdo sets precedent for contemporary media and advertising. She has created a name that is a consistent in her medium and whom deserves recognition for her innovative artistic approaches.