Jan Murray

Figurine (lemon) 2022
oil on linen
Courtesy of the artist and Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne

Artist statement:

In this Figurine series of paintings, puffer jackets are combined to loosely resemble a full-scale figure and further explore the ubiquity of the puffer as a garment of comfort and protection worn throughout the world across all cultures and genders.

This painting seeks to simultaneously render strange yet familiar the fantastical, figurative form that results from the manipulation of these everyday garments. Seemingly suspended within the canvas against a saturated colour, the back-to-front, larger than life image gestures to the viewer while playing with the ambiguities of embodiment and representation through the paradoxes of visual perception.

Vital to the depiction of the material presence of this garment is the faithful, yet expressive application of the paint to amplify the particular and peculiar qualities of this down-filled piece of utilitarian clothing.