Split the Curlew and you’ll find the music Paul Murnaghan

Split the Curlew and you’ll find the music | Paul Murnaghan, Bolay Residency recipient 2023

Paul Murnaghan is a multidisciplinary artist working with the substance of belief. His projects explore spiritual, scientific and psychological terrain. Content is gathered through experiments, public questions and utopian quests. While on the Bolay Residency at Linenhall last year he asked people a question, ‘Where do you go?’ The answers could take any form, memory, place, food, song. Replays came as video, audio, email and anonymous words. For those not fond of cameras, avatars have taken their place. The process evolved into a site specific exhibition that uses video, sound, image and installation to consider where we might find comfort in truthless times.

Gallery text:

The walk from Loch Lannagh to the studio takes about twenty three minutes. I walked it every day of my time in Castlebar. While walking I would take images using whatever was at hand. It was usually a leisurely stroll. You see things. Some mean something and start a train of thought. I gave those thoughts time. You see people, you feel ghosts and think about the lives of others. I suppose that is the luxury of a residency.

When I was here, I asked you a question, asked many of you a question. Where do you go? I meant the words. I meant the words to trickle down, to be pondered (where do you find comfort when you need to be alone?) What can you believe in, now? The answers that were gifted to me were eclectic, as were the answerers. Some spoke of singular moments, sounds, memories, simple and effecting. Others of loss or trauma or well-practiced ways of uncoupling from this life, for a moment.

All were generous, also anonymous or absentminded, one slightly drunk, or just a little uncomfortable. I put words in digital mouths, to stand in place of those not fond of lenses. Those mouths really have nowhere to go but yet they seem to be everywhere these days. These digital creatures, with different thoughts, they scare me, as you once did. They are making new histories, as we all are. So many different histories of the same moment.

The walk takes twenty three minutes. The video takes twenty three minutes. Just like you walked it with me. I was thinking of you at the time.

Paul Murnaghan:

Solo exhibitions include ‘All Mountains Are Moving’, at Limerick City Gallery, and ‘Penumbra’ at The Royal Hibernian Academy. Group exhibitions include, TULCA 18, ‘Melancholy in Progress’ the 3rd Biennial of International Video Art at The Hong-Gah Museum in Taiwan, ‘Blasphemy’ at The Oonagh Young Gallery in Dublin and Memorious as part of MOPE at The Kunsti Museum of Modern Art in Finland. A resident artist at The International Studio & Curatorial Program in Brooklyn and Platform, Finland, he has exhibited in numerous international group shows, with solo shows in Finland, Estonia, Germany, USA and Ireland. Sound and music composition play a prominent role in his work and he has composed for artists such as Celina Muldoon, Sandra Johnston and Dalila Belaza. His video/sound composition ’10 stone’ was commissioned by Channel 4 television’s art program ‘Random Acts’ and ‘Long Song Dream’ was selected by the film Director Pat Murphy for ‘FREE FROM NEAR OR FAR’ at The Irish Film Institute in September 2021. Some of his writing and a monitor installation were recently exhibited as part of Sarah Pierce’s exhibition ‘Scene of the Myth’ at The Irish Museum of Modern Art in 2023.

www.paulmurnaghan.com