Alex
Witteman

Murphy...?

Murphy…? is three frames joined together into a single photographic object. The three frames have a bevel on the back which, when joined and set on a surface, make an equilateral triangle that is extruded upwards with images on each of the three sides. The frames each have a picture of me with a member of the Murphy family. One picture of one-year-old me riding a tractor with my grandpa, one of two-year-old me snuggling up against my grandma in their living room, and one of four-year-old me swimming in Lake Michigan with their dog Sadie. Atop the three frames is a metal indent in which a collection of flash bulbs, slides, and unused film is gathered.

These images act as portraits of me growing up, yes, but also the people, places, and ideals that formed me. The title Murphy…? comes from a realization I had when I was a teenager that my Grandpa Dan was not my "real" grandpa, but my dad's stepdad – something I never thought of given his loving demeanor. In the summer of 2025, he joined my grandmother and his puppies in passing after an arduous battle with dementia – effectively ending my interactions with the Murphy family. His battle with dementia was very hard for us, and I went to see him every day towards the end, watching him deteriorate and become someone he was not due to his illness. It was a difficult time for our whole family. He and my grandma both passed suddenly with poor medical care and with too many hospital visits, spending their last hours away from the home they loved so much and built together.

We are all inherently products of our upbringing, and these are some of the more foundational moments of my life that have formed my values and made me who I am today. A self-portrait for me cannot be of just me, but of me with the important people in my life – something many others feel as well. The bonds of friendship and family are most important to so many people around the world. The faded brownish yellow is reminiscent of the ceramics they had while I was growing up and of memory fading as well, both in myself and my grandparents at the end of their lives. Many artists speak about memory, but I only think about how poor my memory is. Hazy recollections of places and people never quite live up to real life experience – hence our want to preserve them in things like slides and photos.

The accessories left in the middle of the sculpture show the human want to preserve memory through photographic means. Every object in this sculpture was inherited by me in the summer of 2025. That summer, my maternal grandparents downsized to a retirement home and my paternal grandpa passed – leading to piles of things that nobody really wanted yet nobody wanted to throw away. These things have merged into one collection of objects in dozens of boxes – years of memories and memory-making devices collected in one place. We want to remember, yet a failure to do so is inherent in all people. Despite this shortcoming, we have continually tried to capture memories, whether that be on a 35mm camera or an iPhone. At the end of the day, we only have an imprint left on us by those that were most important to us in life, something we cannot remember yet will stick with us until our dying day.