- August 2008 Art @ Mulberry Art Studios -
Matthew Murray : abandonedamerica.org: the collapsing world around us
&
Janelle Paules’ Between the Streets

Matthew Murray
Hidden in the shadows of the waking world, abandoned buildings offer mute testimonial to our country’s past. This is the subject of photographer Matthew Murray’s latest exhibit, abandonedamerica.org: the collapsing world around us, which will be featured in the Louise Gallery at Mulberry Art Studios throughout the month of August. Join the artist for a First Friday opening reception on August 1st from 5pm until 8pm, or stop by on August 3rd or 10th for a Sunday reception from 1pm until 4pm.

Matthew Murray has entered abandoned structures since he was a child, fascinated by the fragments of people’s lives left behind. Four years ago he began a project to preserve such memories and thereby give a voice to the voiceless. Through photography he endeavored to preserve the ethereal grace and stillness that saturates such environments and to give a sense of the awe-inspiring beauty and profound sorrow that remains after life has ceased and only echoes remain.

Matthew has traveled hundreds of miles and has gone to great expense and personal risk to offer viewers a glimpse of the lost worlds that most will never see. He has photographed crumbling asylums and institutions, derelict factories and refineries, polluted power plants, moldering school buildings, ramshackle barns and stockyards, overgrown amusement parks, and collapsing houses.

Throughout his travels, he has risked exposure to lead paints, mercury, asbestos, arsenic, and countless other carcinogens that permeate such sites, in addition to electrocution and failing floors and ceilings. His goal in doing so was to reveal a greater truth that could only be found on the brink of destruction: that death itself is impermanent, and that even in the midst of devastation and chaos life can still thrive in the most fragile and mesmerizing forms.

Through the use of revolutionary new printing and editing techniques Matthew shows the hulking ruins of familiar environments in the full glory of their architectural splendor, preserving the brilliant colors of the toxic molds and frail flora that thrive in the shattered husks of buildings we have neglected. In doing so he presents viewers with riddles to which there are no concrete answers, challenging them to speculate on who may have passed through a site’s hallways and doors, and what our own surroundings will look like after we no longer are there to inhabit them. It is a journey into a dream world, a parallel universe that will change the way you look at the forgotten forever.

To discover more about Matthew Murray and view his breath-taking images please visit his website, abandonedamerica.org.

Janelle Paules’ Between the Streets, a photography exhibit that uses black and white photography in symmetrical form to explore the alleyways of Downtown Lancaster, will be in the North Gallery of Mulberry Art Studios throughout the month of August. An opening reception will be held from 5pm until 8pm on August 1st as part of First Friday. Along with regular gallery hours, Monday through Friday from 10am until 4pm, this exhibit will be open for two Sunday receptions, August 3rd and 10th from 1pm until 4pm.

The inspiration for Between the Streets evolved from photographs that Janelle had seen hanging in the Alley Kat restaurant on Lemon Street. The photographs featured streets and local businesses around the area. “I wanted to take that idea and turn in into the not so known local scenes that appear within the city” Janelle explains. “No one takes notice of these streets, some are a beautiful scenery of trees and fences, or beautifully laid brick walls juxtaposed to a cement wall. It's the little differences that I feel make a city.”

Janelle is a local artist, having lived in Lancaster for 23 years. She attended Millersville University and graduated from the Art Institute of Philadelphia with a BA in Photography. Janelle currently works in Lancaster as an associate photographer at a commercial photography studio.