AUCTION - Fraternal Relations, 2018, Lucas Murnaghan

25” x 17”  C type print
Last print no 8/8 
From an edition started by the artist but printed posthumously. Comes with a Certificate of Authenticity issued by the Estate of Lucas Murnaghan
Image size on paper 24” x 16”

Auctions end 1600 ET, 2100 UK, 2200 Europe on Sunday 25 January 2026

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Fraternal Relations was created in 2018 in Austin, Texas, with Calvin and Cory Boling, identical twin brothers and bodybuilders. Lucas Murnaghan connected with the brothers through Instagram and invited them to travel to Texas to collaborate on an underwater series examining masculinity, identity, and embodied connection. While initially searching for a natural spring, the group ultimately discovered the pool location through Airbnb, an unexpected but fitting environment that shaped the final work.

This photograph stands as one of Lucas’s most conceptually focused explorations of the male form. Rather than presenting masculinity as performance or dominance, Fraternal Relations considers it as something relational, internal, and quietly negotiated between bodies that share origin, history, and physical likeness.

At the heart of the image is the rare tension created by identical twins inhabiting nearly the same physical form across two distinct bodies. Lucas was drawn to the psychological complexity of shared origin, and to the way identity is shaped when the boundary between self and other becomes exceptionally close rather than clearly defined.

Submerged and aligned, the figures appear almost interchangeable at first glance. Yet subtle distinctions in posture, breath, and expression prevent the image from resolving into repetition. These differences assert individuality not through contrast or opposition, but through nuance. Water slows the scene, dissolving hierarchy and removing any sense of action or dominance. What remains is a suspended encounter in which proximity and distinction coexist without the need for resolution

There is no struggle depicted here. The tension lives in restraint. Strength is present, but deliberately contained. The image invites prolonged looking, asking the viewer to register difference through sensation rather than immediate visual cues, and to consider identity as something experienced internally rather than performed outwardly.

The edition of eight was initiated posthumously by the Estate of Lucas Murnaghan as part of the Beneath the Surface online exhibition at BOYS! BOYS! BOYS! in 2023. Since that exhibition, Fraternal Relations has become one of the most closely held and conceptually significant works from the series.