Tim Murdoch
Tim Murdoch is an artist whose works range from monumental hand-carved wood and plastic sculpture to kinetic installation. He graduated from Montserrat College of Art in 1989 and received his MFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2003. His work has been shown at galleries and alternative spaces in Boston, New York and in Europe. Tim has received a Visual Arts Sea Grant from the University of Rhode Island, a Floating Art Grant from the Fort Point Artists Community, a Blanche Colman Award, and in 2011 was a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship finalist. His public art commissions include two for the Massachusetts College of Art and Design- a 24 ft. hand-carved plastic hanging sculptural installation for the college’s new campus center, and a 25 ft. kinetic wall piece for the Spoon Cafe in the college’s new dormitory. His most recent commission in 2012 is a group of hand-carved and welded plastic sculptures for the Constellation Center in Kendall Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 2012, after twenty years living in Boston, Tim moved to San Diego California where he is concentrating on the development of new works.
Statement
I’m interested both in stretching the capability of inherent material properties and in reclaiming natural, organic form from re-purposed utilitarian objects including wood, recycled plastics and electronics. My sculptures and installations show evidence of painstaking, meditative, hand-carved process’s through which they’re made, yet often contain an element of unexpected humor, like a Seussian stripe pattern or a mechanical finger. I try to push the limits of materials, but also the limits for interface with those materials. I’ve created sculptures that transform a viewer’s expectation of space, utilized public store-fronts to confront the general passerby with psychological questions, and harnessed the power of the ocean’s tides to fuel a kinetic installation.
It’s this combination of materiality with the experiment of human-object reaction and interaction that pique my interest in public art- a human, relatable experience. The work is that of a controlled yet mutable landscape between object and viewer, coupled with the intense underlying question of what separates self from other. Through the use of repurposed, hand-worked materials, sprinkled with a touch of humor, my work exists as transformations, investigations and aesthetic public environments.
Recently my installation Emerge, responds to a specific site. The tree and sprout-like forms, hand-excavated and carved from cast off polyethylene natural gas pipes signify the growth that’s to come from the building of a new performing arts center. A new permanent piece for Mass Art, Reflex, consists of an 18 foot tall by 25 foot wide wall of interconnected spring-mounted mirrors. Interactive in nature, the piece is activated by the public sitting on benches in the café in which it’s installed, thereby sending signals to dozens of “reflex” hammers, the sort with which a doctors checks a patient’s knee, mounted behind the mirrors. The hammers strike the mirrors’ springs and a cascade of ripples reverberate through the wall of mirrors – a watery, luminescent shimmer in which the viewer’s reflections are also then skewed and obscured.
Education
2003 Massachusetts College of Art – MFA
1994 La Acadamia Di Belle Arte, Viterbo, Italy
1985 – 1989 Montserrat College of Art
Public Art
2020 Port Spaces Commission, Port of San Diego, CA
2016 And The Tree Was Happy, Plummer Park, West Hollywood, CA
2012 Emergence, Constellation Center, Cambridge, MA
2011 Reflex, Massachusetts College of Art and design, Boston, MA
2010 Tidal Flowers, Fort Point Channel, Boston Harbor
2009 Lifelines, Massachusetts College of Art and design, Boston, MA
2007 Midway Theater Installation, Midway Studios, Boston, MA
2005 Touch Me, Touch You, Installations at the Ritz Carlton Hotel, Boston, MA
Selected Exhibitions
2020
“Illumination” 21st Century Interactions with Art Science Technology San Diego Art Institute, San Diego, CA
Port Spaces Commission Port of San Diego, San Diego, CA
2019
“Forces of Nature” San Diego International Airport
2018
ShipFest, A Ship in the Woods, Arts Festival, Escondido, CA.
Sensorium, Vanguard Culture, IDEA 1, San Diego, CA.
2017
Baja Biennial, San Diego Art Institute, San Diego, CA
Genius in the House, Mining Value – “The Joshua Tree Diamonds”. Fleet Science Center, Balboa Park, San Diego, CA.
A Scientist and an Artist Walk into a Bar, A discussion on art and science with Uri Manor from the Salk Institute, Sponsored by the Fleet Science Center, San Diego, CA
2016
Ripe, Boehm Gallery, San Marcos, CA
(RE)FORMATIONS, JTAG Gallery, Joshua Tree, CA
Can You Dig It, Plummer Park, West Hollywood, CA
2015
San Diego Art Prize 2015, New Contemporaries VIII, Valencia Gallery, San Diego CA
2013
La Jolla Athaneum, Carried Away, La Jolla CA
“Very Comfortable” Palomar College, San Marcos, CA
“25th Anniversary Rhode Island Sea Grant show”,
University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI
2012
Constellation Center, Kendall Sq, Cambridge MA
2011
“Chain Letter Show”, Sampson Projects, Boston, MA
“Wood” Higgins Art Gallery, Cape Cod Community College, West Barnstable, MA
2010
“Incidents and Reflections” Heidi Kayser and Tim Murdoch
Schiltkamp Gallery, Clark University, Worcester, MA
“Yellow Show” Boston Children’s Museum, Boston, MA
“The new Media Curious: Experimental Moving Images Festival”
Axiom Gallery, Jamaica Plain, MA
2009
“Tim Murdoch Installations”, Gallery 360, Northeastern University, Boston, MA
“See Wall”, Fort Point Gallery, Boston Ma,
Juried by Raphaela Platow, Director, Contemporary Arts Center Cincinnati.
“Fort Point of View”, 119 Gallery, 119 Chelmsford Street, Lowell, MA.
2008
“Reused Repurposed Reinvented” BHCC Art Gallery, Boston, MA.
“Collision 1101: Superartificial” Axiom Center for New and Experimental Art, Jamaica Plain, MA.
“Smaller is Better” Schiltkamp Gallery, Worcester, MA.
2007
Site Specific Installation of “Evolving Sculpture” Midway Theater 15 Channel Center Street Boston, MA
“Solo Installation Project” Studio Soto, 63 Melcher Street, Boston MA. Reception: June 16, 6-8 P.M
“Visiting Sculptor” Boston Convention Center, 415 Summer Street, Boston, MA.
2006
“Reverberation” Tim Murdoch and Jon Petro Shiltkamp Gallery, Clark University Worcester, MA
“One is Better” Dam, Stuhltrager Gallery, Brooklyn, New York
2005
“Inside Out” Sculpture and Installations by Tim Murdoch, Montserrat College of Art, Beverly MA.
“Sensations” Paintings by Deborah Davidson and Tim Murdoch, Schlosberg Gallery, Montserrat College of Art
Visiting Artist – Montserrat College of Art.
2004
“Faculty Exhibition” Schiltkamp Gallery, Clark University, Worcester, MA
“Touch You” Avery Street Window Installations, Boston, MA. A series of site specific installations, created within storefront windows along Avery Street in downtown Boston.
2003
“Touch Me” Avery Street Window Installations, Boston, MA. The first in a two part series of site specific installations running from October through April, sponsored by the Millennium Partners, Boston.
150 X 150 ” Mad Dash” Green Street Gallery, Jamaica Plain, MA.
The 14th Annual Benefit Art Auction, Mass College of Art, Boston, MA.
MFA Thesis Show, Stephen Paine Gallery, Mass College of Art,
Boston, MA.
Awards / Commissions
2016 Artist in Residence, JTHAR Joshua Tree, CA
2015 Sand Diego Art Prize, Nominee
2014 ArtsWa, Art in Public Places, Valley View Middle School, Shortlist
2014 ArtsWa, Art in Public Places, Cheney Middle School, Shortlist
2013 ArtsWa, Art in Public Places, Westwood Middle School, Shortlist
2013 ArtsWa, Art in Public Places, Oak Harbor high School, Shortlist
2013 TideLands2, Port of San Diego Commission, Finalist(defunded)
2013 San Diego International Airport Commission, Finalist
2012 Constellation Center Commission, Cambridge MA
2011 Massachusetts Cultural Commission, Finalist, Sculpture Installation
2011 New Dorm Commission, Mass College of Art and Design
2010 Appleton Mills Art Commission, Finalist
2010 Visual Arts Sea Grant, University of Rhode Island
2010 Friends of Fort Point Channel, Public Art Grant
2009 Blanche E. Colman Grant
2009 Atrium Sculpture Commission, Mass College of Art and Design
2003 Joan Mitchell Award, Nominee
2002 Berkshire Taconic Foundation, Artist Resource Trust Grant
1989 Liquitex Award
1987 Yale Norfolk Summer Program, Nominee
Teaching
2003-2012 Clark University, Worcester, MA. Visiting Lecturer, Sculpture
-Introduction to Sculptural forms
-Sculpture Projects and Installation
-Sculpture Studio
-Figurative Sculpture
Other responsibilities include: Management of student workers, Sculpture department budgets, Studio maintenance and technology.
2003, 2005 Massachusetts College of Art and Design
-Sculpture Seminar,
-Mixed Media
2005, 2006, 2010 Mass Art
-Visiting Critic, Sculpture student reviews
2005 Montserrat College of Art
-Visiting Artist
Collections
Massachusetts College of Art and Design
Deloitte and Touche, Boston, MA.
Hale and Dorr, Washington D.C.
Centre Solutions, The Bahamas.
Various individual collections, national and international.
Tim Murdoch 