am and not were originally made in 2013. Inscribed with the statements, “I am not a threat”, and “I am from love”, the writing was then obscured by layers of acrylic paint and plaster. The pieces were reworked in 2024. More layers were added. The passing of a decade, and the inevitable changes in mindset and selfhood, are evident in the resulting surfaces. Muirhead is acknowledging the porousness of certainty and conviction.
The grayscale, abstract and haunting quality of the pieces, recall Sally Mann’s Civil War battlefields series, Last Measures. Mann’s collection “a thousand crossings”, begins with the inscription “Surely the people is grass, Isaiah 40:7.” A relevant consideration: the passage of time reducing us to a collective organism.
