The Ties That Bind
Carrie Schneider
Spencer Murphy

February 7 - March 6, 2008
Opening Reception: Thursday February 7, 6 - 8 PM


Image: Carrie Schneider, Untitled (Library) from the series Derelict Self, 2006-2007


The two artists in The Ties That Bind embrace the ambiguity of identity and relationships in extraordinary photographic
works that evoke very simple visual pleasures. Carrie Schneider’s Derelict Self portrays the artist in
stagings, performing as double to a similarly styled male figure—at a cafeteria, in a grocery store etc. The sum
effect negates the genders of the individuals into a single androgyne, but it’s a relationship between a singular
self in dispute. Even in the vulnerable, naked moments of Untitled (Tub) there’s a palatable isolation, an aloneness.
Spencer Murphy’s Relative, a series of blended-family photographs, seemingly operates from documentary’s
authentic place—yet the photographs’ formal construction hints that the artist knows truth is more
slippery, especially when it comes to family relationships. Schneider’s work presents a literalized mirror stage of
development. Murphy’s is a new acceptance of relations achievable only through the distance of age, of growing
older. They are two completely different ways, yet both arrive at the same dotting of the “i” in identity.


Image: Spencer Murphy, from the series Relative, dad at door, 2002


Biographies

Carrie Schneider (b. 1979, Chicago; lives Chicago and Helsinki) earned her Master of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
in 2007. Upon graduating, Carrie attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and is currently on a Fulbright Fellowship to Kuvataideakatemia,
the Academy of Fine Arts, in Helsinki, Finland. Recent and upcoming exhibitions include the Third Azerbaijan Biennial in Baku, Helsinki’s
Taidehalle Kunsthalle, and Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago.

Spencer Murphy was born in 1978 and grew up in the Kentish countryside of England. Raised in relative isolation, miles from the nearest shop
or school, Spencer often found himself with only his imagination for company and the surrounding woodland as his playground. As a young boy, he
took refuge in his mum’s back-issues of National Geographic, which inspired an early enthusiasm for the photographic image. As a result, his mum
bought him his first camera at the age of eleven, and that interest became a passion. Since completing his degree in Falmouth, Cornwall (UK) in 2002
– during which time the project Relative was conceived– Spencer has since spent several years living in London, first working as a photographer’s
assistant and then setting up on his own, all the while continuing his personal projects. He has since contributed to many magazines, exhibited worldwide
and received awards for his work. He now also works as a visiting lecturer at Universities in the UK.

Brian Joseph Davis is a sound artist and writer based in Toronto. He’s primarily interested in the packaging and repackaging of sound relationships—
such as box sets, banned and burned albums and cultural memory of songs. When this is mistaken for music he’s especially happy. Four years
of Davis’ work was recently collected on the Blocks Recording Club release The Definitive Host. His writing appears regularly in Arthur Magazine and
Eye Weekly.

EXHIBITION BROCHURE AND ESSAY BY BRIAN JOSEPH DAVIS