Joel Taylor Murnan
Instagram: @joelmurnan
Website: https://www.joelmurnan.com/
Bio: Joel Taylor Murnan (b. 1997 Grass Valley, CA) pursued his education at the San Francisco Art Institute and obtained a B.F.A. in Sculpture from California College of the Arts. Currently, he is a M.F.A candidate at the University of California, Davis. Most recently, Murnan was selected as an Artist in Residence for Tropical Lab 2024 in Singapore, showcasing his work in a collective exhibition. Murnan’s work explores themes of land and control, drawing inspiration from his childhood memories of a pastoral landscape. Murnan’s sculptures capture the mood of the terrain, utilizing diverse mediums that offer a unique perspective on our relationship with the land.
Statement: The monster in nearly every culture symbolizes collective uncertainty and shapes our perception of the landscape. These sculptures channel the monster or Daemon, as the manifestation of our temporality through elements such as rotting wood, forgotten mechanical tools, and pieces of discarded trash. Daemons represent the unknown, marking boundaries and defining our relationship with land and ecology. Monsters are represented on medieval maps as symbols of uncharted territories, asserting control over unknown lands. My work uses monsters as metaphors to examine global and personal relationships with land, distilling feelings of scarcity, limitation, and a desire for ecological balance. Modern ecology is intertwined with human intervention. As catastrophic as these realities may seem, there is an odd beauty in the integration of manufactured elements within the wild. The landscape fluctuates like a dance of particles—a continuous flow of energies and forms in constant motion dissolving and reforming. In my work, found objects are joined together. These components unite and become endowed with life, like a Golem. Monsters are potent symbols of our ecological fragility; they signal a call to action. My research explores the interconnectedness with the landscapes we inhabit, examining both our fears and hopes of the world around us.
