Millstream Way. There Was Nothing We Couldn't Do.

Murray, Matthew ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8956-8062, Bucklow, Christopher, Roth, Nathan and Elliott, Addie (2027) Millstream Way. There Was Nothing We Couldn't Do. Other. Elliott Gallery Editions, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. (In Press)

Preview	Image (Millstream Way There Was Nothing We Couldn't Do. Photo Credit Matthew Murray) Book Spreads Uni-048.jpg - Published Version Available under License All Rights Reserved. Download (1MB) | Preview
	Text (Published Monograph 2027) Millstream Way.pdf - Draft Version Restricted to Repository staff only Download (1MB) | Request a copy

Abstract

With a Foreword by Artist Christopher Bucklow Published by Elliott Gallery, Amsterdam This publication presents a distinctive body of work by Matthew Murray, bringing together photography, sculpture, adjacent processes, and experimental image-making in a deliberately tactile, unpolished, and materially direct form. Designed by Chicago-based graphic designer Nathan Roth, the book embraces a metal spiral-bound finish that resists the conventions of the precious photobook. Instead, it invites handling, use, and physical engagement—echoing the roughness, immediacy, and hybridity that define Murray’s practice. The book weaves together an array of image-making methods, including 3D scanning, historical photographic processes, photocopies, Polaroids, and photogravure prints. These techniques are not presented as isolated experiments but as interconnected gestures that reflect Murray’s ongoing interest in how images carry memory, ethics, and lived experience. The result is a visual language in which analogue and digital, past and present, surface and depth coexist seamlessly. Running throughout the book is a commitment to oral history and the ethics of storytelling. Murray’s images are informed by conversations, recollections, and the fragile narratives that shape our understanding of place and identity. These voices, sometimes explicit, sometimes implied—anchor the work in a social and emotional landscape, ensuring that the experimental processes never drift into abstraction but remain grounded in human experience. The book includes a foreword by Christopher Bucklow, the British artist and writer known for his experimental photographic practice and philosophical approach to image-making. Bucklow previously served as Curator of Photography at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), where he contributed to the development of the museum’s photography collections and research. His writing—spanning works such as What is in the Dwat and The Beauty of the World—is celebrated for its lyrical, metaphysical, and intellectually expansive qualities. His work has been exhibited internationally, including at MoMA, the V&A, the National Gallery of Art (Washington), The Photographers’ Gallery, and the Royal Academy. Bucklow’s contribution as the foreword's author situates the book within a lineage of artists who challenge the boundaries of photographic representation. His background as a V&A curator, his deep engagement with experimental processes, and his philosophical approach to image-making make him an ideal interlocutor for a project that blends 3D scanning, historical processes, photogravure, Polaroids, and oral history into a unified narrative. The sequencing, material choices, and hybrid visual textures create a rhythm that mirrors the layered nature of Murray’s practice. Pages shift between clarity and opacity, precision and roughness, echoing the way memory itself is constructed: uneven, tactile, and always in motion. This publication is not simply a container for images; it is an extension of the work itself—a physical, hybrid, and sensorial object that embodies the very questions the practice seeks to explore.

Item Type:	Monograph (Other)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Monograph; PhD; Landscape; Portraits; Photocopy; polaroids; large format; Oral History
Related records:	Millstream Way. There Was Nothing We Cou...
Subjects:	N Fine Arts > N Visual arts (General) For photography, see TR N Fine Arts > NB Sculpture N Fine Arts > ND Painting N Fine Arts > NE Print media N Fine Arts > NX Arts in general T Technology > TR Photography
Divisions:	Schools and Research Institutes > School of Arts, Culture and Environment
Depositing User:	Matthew Murray
Date Deposited:	05 Aug 2026 11:28
Last Modified:	05 Aug 2026 11:28
URI:	https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/id/eprint/16396

University Staff: Request a correction | Repository Editors: Update this record