His first major project entitled Salt (2009) was produced in the middle of Lake Eyre, an extensive salt pan in South Australia’s outback. Fredericks camped alone, in the middle of the dry lake for many weeks at a time. ‘Array’ is a continuation of Fredericks’ renowned series ‘Salt’ (2007), and more recently ‘Vanity’ (2017). In ‘ Vanity’, Fredericks introduced a mirror into the previously undisturbed landscape, in Array, Fredericks takes this a step further by introducing multiple mirrors which he painstakingly carries himself. In these works, the artist intersects endless space through the ethereal reflective quality of multiple mirrors. Rather than employing the mirror as a symbol of self-reflection, Fredericks redirects our gaze away from ourselves and into the immense environment. His translations of the language of landscape verge on otherworldly; reflections hover together as geometric forms, apertures or portals, offering a dual experience of looking both into another realm and out, as the lake’s glass-like surface mirrors an infinite space above.
“In these images I find my own, flawed, search for a kind of perfection. Perhaps it is a search driven by my own anxieties or vain attempt to escape the human condition. Standing in the silken water, surrounded only by a boundless horizon, I sense a release, a surrendering as the self dissolves into the light and space.” – Murray Fredricks