Catherine Murphy. Recent Work

About

Catherine Murphy works from direct observation, depicting both existing scenarios as well as imagined ones through elaborately staged set-ups in her studio or on her property. Her practice requires a prolonged process of painting or drawing under the right circumstances over months, sometimes even years. The carefully considered arrangements transform our way of looking, effectively capturing both fleeting moments and the passage of time.

Scale, framing, and perspective are all thoughtfully manipulated to convey how conditions, settings, and time can affect our perception. In Nine Over Nine we feel larger than life looking down through a gridded window pane onto white snow, whereas in Under the Table and Bed Clothes we feel child-like looking up into the laps of sitters at a table or from the foot of a bed at the outfit laid upon it. In Double Bed the view is straight-on. Soft pillows and pliable covers echo the forms and sleeping habits of a couple, the rumpled linens indicative of a years-long companionship.

Her compositions often reference art historical precedents, from old master paintings to minimalism. Among the graphite drawings on view, Ships, Plaid, Scalloped, and Leopard Skin are unconventional half-length portraits of scarved figures positioned with their backs to the viewer. In Studio Spot, light bounces off the metal hood around a bulb lying on the ground, transforming an area of the paint-splattered floor into an illuminated galaxy.

Murphy’s work continues to evolve as she enters the sixth decade of her career. There is an immediacy to her latest paintings, almost a sense of urgency in which her brushstrokes are full of vitality. In Still Living, a damaged tree in her backyard stands tall and sturdy while bearing a visceral scar from a lost limb. It is wounded but alive, altered but surviving. Murphy’s paintings and drawings remind us that every moment and every object is affected by constant change and that, eventually, we are also subject to such inevitable change.