The Courage of Margaret Mead and Bird Room

TODD MURPHY 1998
It's about signal sending, animal markings, technological devices. Anything that's about signs that send messages. .....a lot of animals, a lot of patterns......it all becomes part of a bigger pattern. We have our time, we send our signals and we move on. And that becomes part of a bigger pattern.

Todd Murphy , Hour, Detroit, 1998
Collage of traditional painted landscape scenes and hunting paintings, sourcing high and low paintings, from old world to kitsch. layering to create truly original vague landscape with photographic and sculptural birds unifying the scene.

Duck painting, 2018
photo collage of paintings (from old world to kitsch), photography, sculptural cutouts and antique duck decoys.
the collage paintings creating a unified scene. I think it can be amazing.

Duck painting

“I try to make my art approachable. The average person not interested in art can appreciate my work for its beauty. Someone deeper into art can see the different layers.”

—TODD MURPHY, 2016 Forbes interview
“It's this idea of the infinite within the finite - the comfort in recognizing that physics/science/art all are about asking questions.”

—Todd Murphy, 1995
…..a lot of animals, a lot of patterns…it all becomes part of the bigger pattern. We have our time, we send our signals and we move on, And that becomes part of a bigger pattern.”

Todd Murphy (𝖧𝗈𝗎𝗋, 𝖣𝖾𝗍𝗋𝗈𝗂𝗍, 1998)

“Do you know how risky it is to make something beautiful at this point? Even to make something aesthetic, that’s not performative or conceptual? It’s very challenging.”

— Todd Murphy, 2016
Its vastness shows the giant works at their best; staring at his pieces can be a bit humbling, like gazing into the night sky.

John Lerner, Peach Magazine, 2007
The Courage of Margaret Mead celebrates the legacy of Margaret Mead (1901-1978). Mead was a pioneer in the use of film and photography in her ethnographic research; and was one of the first anthropologist to focus on visual communication, non verbal communiation, kinesics, and proxemics.

The illusion of order created by the sciences— remember the word science, like the world scissors comes from a root meaning to cut or divide—conceals a deeper irrationality and disorderly Unity.

TODD MURPHY 2000

The Courage of Margaret Mead and Bird Room

It's about signal sending, animal markings, technological devices. Anything that's about signs that send messages. .....a lot of animals, a lot of patterns......it all becomes part of a bigger pattern. We have our time, we send our signals and we move on. And that becomes part of a bigger pattern.