Joel Murnan (Born 1997, Grass Valley, CA) is a Grass Valley based artist. Murnan is a sculptor whose work investigates land and its control. His pieces are embedded in the tradition of model making that touches on abstraction and surrealism. Roaming the pastures of his family’s ranch as a child generated a way of thought, “Ranch Brains” is a self-appointed condition that illustrates the problems he’s discovered while functioning in a society that is absorbed in fast-paced living.
Land is a universal aspect of our lives. We engage with land at every moment of every day, so how we are allowed to experience it is incredibly important. Yet we are denied this experiential luxury because of lines on maps, barbed wire fences, and signs claiming private property. These demarcations completely alter our relation to the world and leave many of us pondering what just might be on the other side of that hill. My curiosity is driven by how maps, personal relations with land, and dioramas could address the accessibility of property in the United States.
Terrain is controlled by how it is charted, and to chart a place you need to trace its form. Topography is used to illustrate the details of land features on a map. In my practice, I have mapped objects as if they were landscapes. Through the wrapping of each object, texture, or form, the collection of lines creates a topographical rendering. As the underlying sculpture is covered, many details become lost within each line. Similar to mapping a place, a skin of lines, sections, and borders are laid over a landmass to be divided and parceled off. The depiction of land controls the way its narrative is seen, used, and manipulated. As these forms are wrapped in rope, their details are abandoned and what remains is a skewed perception of the object.
Land is a fundamental part of our psychology. By traversing the landscape, we hold a personal relationship to place. Grounds can heal, but the access of these places are off limits for all but a few. The features of the earth carry emotions within them, and the figuration I use in my work allows them to speak. These projected emotions found in the shape, texture, and scale of the land reflect the inner workings of the human condition. As a person who often projects their own thoughts and emotions onto a landscape, it is only fitting that the landscape does the same back.
The interpretation of the landscape is extremely important to consider. My studio practice incorporates a tradition that has held a bearing on the landscape for over a century. The creation of model train tables serve an eco-political purpose unrecognized by their makers and their audience. Within each miniature world, there are scenes that glorify the concept of manifest destiny. In these scenes, the extraction of resources, mastery of the terrain, and cultivation of land are frequent symbols of the idealized America. Like the landscape painters of the nineteenth century that idealized western expansion, basement hobby enthusiasts continue to glorify colonization. By absorbing these same modes of working, my dioramas and miniatures turn the tradition on its head, by highlighting how the landscape and its narrative is controlled.
To think critically about land is an important philosophical and political critique. Land is something to be shared. If we were only allowed to roam, our stake in the Earth could inspire the next generation to revoke their need for land as capital and focus their attention on the interests of the dirt beneath their feet.