Wendy McMurdo’s Nature Study (Gannet) ii and Nature Study (Cormorant) are part of an ongoing series looking at our changing relationship to animals and to the natural world. She has worked extensively with the animal collections in the National Museum of Scotland, interested in the ways in which species conservation is represented in the museum setting.

As some bird species in particular become rare - or even reach the brink of extinction - it’s clear that we may never see certain species during our lifetime again. What we have left then, is a memory of these birds or animals based on fragmentary tales, recorded bird song, archival photographs or objects in the museum.

Nature Study (Gannet) ii and Nature Study (Cormorant)takes the indigenous birdlife of the East Coast of Scotland as their starting point. In each print, a diving bird is captured frozen and diving downwards. The figures of the birds are then split by digital fractals, appearing to both disintegrate and re-form as they plunge downwards towards the sea.

BIOGRAPHY

Wendy McMurdo is a widely exhibited artist who has worked with some of the largest commissioning bodies in the UK. In 2018 she was named as one of the Hundred Heroines by The Royal Photographic Society, an initiative to showcase the best of global contemporary female photographic practice and reflect the amazing diversity of methodologies and approaches of different generations of women working within the medium.  She specializes in photography and digital media and holds a doctorate by publication from University of Westminster for her photographic work exploring the impact of the computer on our collective identities. Her work is included in a number of major collections and has featured in a wide variety of exhibitions, including The Anagrammatical Body: The Body and its Photographic Condition, ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany, Uncanny, Fotomuseum Winterthur and Only Make Believe curated by Marina Warner for Compton Verney, Warwickshire, UK. 

Watch a recent short film on Wendy McMurdo’s work from the National Galleries of Scotland’s Artists in Profile here:

https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/artists/wendy-mcmurdo