Dr Sadie Murdoch
Sadie deploys chromatic anomalies and unstable readings to provide an insight into notions of ‘otherness’.
Staff details
In Sadie Murdoch's recent projects, chromatic anomalies and unstable readings are deployed in order to provide an insight into the ways in which photographic documents construct notions of ‘otherness’ and produce particular readings of history. Faults appear, mis-alignments of colour, smearings, dirt.
In Sadie's photographs, she often appears as an incarnation of a historical character or event. She is part of the work in a material sense, in the re-enacted gestures and poses, the making and marking of the objects and surfaces. The registers of the drawn, the photographed and the real merge and force a consideration of how we construct and are constructed by, our encounter with the archival. She is currently represented by Roberto Polo Gallery, Brussels.
Academic qualifications
- 2003-2004 Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program, New York
- 1993-1999 Leeds Metropolitan University, Leeds, PhD Visual Arts
- 1989-1990 Chelsea College of Art and Design, London. MA Painting
- 1984-1987 Leeds Polytechnic, Leeds, BA (Hons) Fine Art. First Class
- 1983-1984 Leicester Polytechnic, Foundation in Art and Design
Professional projects
Employing methods of re-staging and photo-montage, Sadie Murdoch explores the nature of the photographic document as a construct. Fragments of the unrecognisable and unidentified, the lost and ruined, appear in her drawings and photographs, as part of an investigation into the way in which archives can be ‘inhabited’, through methods which are digital, material and spatial.
Murdoch was a Picker Fellow, Kington University from 1990-1991, and an Abbey Rome Scholar at the British School at Rome in 2002. She attended the Whitney Museum of American Art, Independent Study Program, New York from 2003-2004 and has been a recipient of awards from Arts Council England, and the London Arts Board. One-person exhibitions of her work have been presented at the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, The Apartment, Athens, and the Agency, the Henry Peacock Gallery and Domobaal in London.
For her solo exhibition in 2016, SSS-MM, at the Museum Haus Konstruktiv in Zürich, accompanied by her artist book Omnipulsepunslide (published by Artphilein Editions), Murdoch re-interpreted images, objects and texts relating to women involved in the New York and Zürich Dada movement.
Murdoch was included in La Grande Horizontale at TEFAF Curated, Maastricht, the Netherlands andBrexit-Out of the Matrix? at Palazzo Liestal, Basel, Switzerland (2017), Spectral Metropole at the Vžigalica Gallery, City Museum of Ljubljana, Slovenia (2012), Gets Under the Skin at the Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York (2010) and Ballet Mécanique at Timothy Taylor Gallery, London (2008). She has a number of works in public collections, including the Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zürich and the Museum of Santa Cruz de Toledo, Spain.
Publications and research outputs
Show/Exhibition
Murdoch, Sadie. 2023. Women of the '20s. In: "Women of the '20s", Belmacz Gallery, United Kingdom, 5 October - 22 December 2023.
Murdoch, Sadie and Kahn, Daria. 2022. The Baroness. In: "The Baroness", Mimosa House, London, United Kingdom, 27 May - 17 September 2022.
De Buck, Isolde and Murdoch, Sadie. 2021. Rhapsody in Blue. In: "Rhapsody in Blue", Villa Les Zéphyrs, Westende, Belgium, 30 October 2021- 18 April 2022.
Performance
Murdoch, Sadie; Upson, Toby and Zahedi, Abbas. 2021. A Case of Med(dling)tation. In: "A Case of Med(dling)tation", Belmacz Gallery, United Kingdom, 10 July 2021.
Artist's Book
Murdoch, Sadie. 2016. Omnipulsepunslide..
Conference or Workshop Item
Weizman, Ines; Muggenburg, Julia; Madejska, Agata; Mattes, Hanna; Murdoch, Sadie; Porat, Ronit; Wachsmuth, Anna; Curtis, Penelope and Garfield, Rachel. 2023. 'Jazz The Known: Artistic Experiments on Women of the ’20s'. In: Jazz The Known: Artistic Experiments on Women of the ’20s. Goethe-Institut London, United Kingdom 13 October 2023.
Kahn, Daria; Murdoch, Sadie; Partridge, Taqralik and Ades, Dawn. 2022. 'Finissage: The Baroness, panel talk'. In: Finissage: The Baroness. Mimosa House, United Kingdom 15 September 2022.
Murdoch, Sadie. 2018. 'Inhabiting the Archive - The Anagrammatic Model: The Body, in Pieces'. In: Inhabiting the Archive - The Anagrammatic Model: The Body, in Pieces. FOMU-Fotomuseum, Belgium March 27, 2018.
Article
Murdoch, Sadie. 2018. I Can See The Men Hidden In The Forest. Journal of Visual Art Practice, 16(3), pp. 229-239. ISSN 1470-2029
Book Section
Murdoch, Sadie. 2015. Too Much of a Good Thing. In: Mo Throp and Maria Walsh, eds. The MAKE Anthology: Reviewing the Past and Looking to the Future of Women’s Art Practice. London: I.B Tauris. ISBN The MAKE Anthology: Reviewing the Past and Looking to the Future of Women’s Art Practice
Professional Activity
Murdoch, Sadie. 2024. Research Visit to the Textile Museum of the Fondazione Antonio Ratti (FAR) in Como, Italy.
Murdoch, Sadie. 2024. Research Visits to The Silk Museum in Macclesfield, U.K..