Hollywood Debris, 2024

Wendy Murray, in collaboration with Lesley Wheeler
Printer: Wendy Murray Studios
Dimensions: 48 x 16 in
Medium: 22 paper stencil layers (serigraph / stencils) on cotton rag
Edition:10

Hollywood Debris is part of a collaborative series responding to the artist Paul DeLongpre, a French painter of flowers who lived in Hollywood just as Hollywood became Hollywood. Poet Lesley Wheeler and I saw in him mystery—an artist who made a (opulent) living solely from his ability to paint extremely realistic, beautiful flowers, who drew thousands of people to his home and gardens to see where the magic happened. But now, where his mansion once stood is a city block. We have been drawing, printing, and writing and have plans for a site specific installation. Hollywood Debris is a riff on a DeLongpre painting – the trash replacing the DeLongpre immigrant garden flowers, the helicopters replacing butterflies and bees. Created from a drawing and 22 paper cut stencils, the work was printed in Murray’s tiny Silver Lake garage studio.

WM x Lesley Wheeler
We Wear Tracks, 2023
Collaborative project by Los Angeles based artists Wendy Murray and Lesley Wheeler.

Wendy and I met in the parking lot of a vegan restaurant in Silverlake. We were both working an artists’ market on a hot Saturday afternoon in July. My umbrella was losing its fight against the sun. If I don’t stay at my table during events I lose potential customers—poems don’t write themselves! But I did a lap of the market, saw each booth, and said some hellos to the fellow artists. I noticed in particular Wendy and her table of vibrant prints which shouted messages into the bright, clear day. We followed each other on Instagram.

In late July, Wendy posted photos of the most glorious palm tree print—three tall skinnies bending over the viewer as if observing the creature that walks below them. I messaged Wendy to see if I could buy one from her if she happened to any left after that day’s market. She one-up’ed me with an even better idea—that we collaborate on making text to go with the print.

We Sway; You Wear Tracks II, 2023 / Serigraph, 8 1/2 x 11 in

We Sway; You Wear Tracks I. 2023
Serigraph, 8 1/2 x 11 in

Wendy and I met in the parking lot of a vegan restaurant in Silverlake.

When I showed up to Wendy’s studio, I found myself in the most creatively alive environment I’ve been in in a long time. I didn’t know what to expect, but was excited to find a new friend. I thought we were going to hang out and talk about art, markets, and what it’s like to chase this particular dream in Los Angeles in 2023. And we did all those things, but we also did so much more—almost instantaneously we began to collaborate. Wendy had a bowl of grapes and gluten free bread I could eat, and we just started in on it.

Things are looking down

She showed me how she sets text with Letraset, and helped me set a word in my tiny reporter’s notebook—mint. From there we found words to accompany the image. What do we see? What feelings come up? What’s the perspective, and what is being said with this image? We came up with two possibilities: Things are looking down and We sway; you wear tracks.

To me, the tree trio appears as if looking down upon the viewer—three sentries of Los Angeles from on high pause just for a moment to say hello. But the way the heat has been this summer, it’s important to acknowledge that hey, things are not so great right now. Nothing can compete with Los Angeles at its most beautiful, but still—things are looking down.

Things are Looking Down IV, 2023
Serigraph, 8 1/2 x 11 in

Things are Looking Down I, 2023
Serigraph, 8 1/2 x 11 in

But what of the other movements the palms make? They sway. They make small sky loops, barely moving unless you watch closely. Okay so if they’re swaying, what are we doing down here? We wear tracks into the ground below, walking and driving over the same paths day and again.

After this initial session of creating words and ideas and finding the right Letraset sheets, Wendy set to. She created iteration after iteration of beautiful prints melding the words, images, and colors of a most electric, smoggy, neon sky. The results are born of a moment absolutely captured, of two sets of creative impulses at home with one another in Los Angeles. - Lesley Wheeler