If water had its way is a meditation on the dynamic relationship between water in all its states, land and culture. Water functions as a sculptor of our planet and the primary component of our bodies, making it a potent symbol in rites of birth, life, and death. As a species, we also spend a good deal of time and energy trying to control it. This painting-centric installation explores inertia and equilibrium as our concept of and role in the landscape continues to shift amid the climate crisis. The title was taken from a passage in Anthony Doerr's book About Grace which motivated the thought experiment:  What if water has a sense of agency? And after everything has been undone, what will be left of our urge to undo?

If water had its way, if geology stopped, the seas would chew up the continents, and rain would wear down the mountains. Water would eventually scour the entire planet into a smooth, definitionless sphere. We’d be left with a single ocean, waist deep, all over the globe. Then, with nothing left to throw itself at, all the divisions and obstacles eroded —no unworn pebbles, no beaches to crash onto, every water molecule touching another— water would disclose, finally, what was in its molecular heart. Would it stand calm and unruffled? Or would it turn on itself—would it throw itself up into storms?

~Anthony Doerr, About Grace

My work explores how our concept of landscape has changed through technology. The visible horizon traditionally defined our relationship to the world; now with our expanding perspective, we feel a kinship with microscopic images and aerial views of planets. Vestiges of built environments, architecture, or even scientific illustration have been added to our visual vernacular and create for us a sense of place. Our bodies are quite literally composed of recycled matter from the stars. We are reshuffled molecules. In this context, I consider myself a landscape painter.

In my practice I value symbiotic relationships among materials, process, and concept. I initiate paintings with the aid of gravity and evaporation, working with water media on polymer paper and allowing the pools of water and pigment to settle and form images over time. I am interested in painting as a method of creating an image that represents other substances or realities, but also in paint being (or becoming) an entity in itself. Installed low on the gallery walls, elements of the work touch the floor--crossing an implied line--and transition into sand. Multiple panels compose the larger whole, in an attempt to evoke a larger view, referencing satellite imagery. I invite the viewer to connect the dots between disparate colors and forms and to piece together a cohesive whole, mirroring the process of emergence. 

~Susan Murrell