the sculptures and drawings have a directness. you get a sense of a person involved in the making of this thing. there isn't a pretension. it doesn't have to have flash or flare. Pryzbilla, 2007 (Untitled, 2006)
the sculptures and drawings have a directness. you get a sense of a person involved in the making of this thing. there isn't a pretension. it doesn't have to have flash or flare. Pryzbilla, 2007 (Untitled, 2006)
the sculptures and drawings have a directness. you get a sense of a person involved in the making of this thing. there isn't a pretension. it doesn't have to have flash or flare. Pryzbilla, 2007 (Untitled, 2006) Mixed Media
the sculptures and drawings have a directness. you get a sense of a person involved in the making of this thing. there isn't a pretension. it doesn't have to have flash or flare. Pryzbilla, 2007 (Untitled studio), 2006
the sculptures and drawings have a directness. you get a sense of a person involved in the making of this thing. there isn't a pretension. it doesn't have to have flash or flare. Pryzbilla, 2007 (Untitled studio), 2006
the sculptures and drawings have a directness. you get a sense of a person involved in the making of this thing. there isn't a pretension. it doesn't have to have flash or flare. Pryzbilla, 2007 (Untitled), 2006, Mixed media
MOCA Jacksonville 2007
MOCA Jacksonville, 2007
Murphy studio is an affecting place to visit. “In the studio the rest of the world disappears” He says. Its vastness shows the giant works at their best; staring at his pieces can be a bit humbling, like gazing into the night sky. But your mind must make a quick adjustment when you walk into another room, where Murphy has arranged low partitions. In the spaces they demarcate, he has set up tiny dioramas and spot-lit displays of little skeletons, found objects, toy animals, fish swimming behind aquarium-blue windows. He calls this the Miniature Museum of Natural history, his “little dreamworld”. From a certain angle, you almost believe you were looking down a long file of echoing marble halls, and that the objects on display are real.
“A Portrait of an Artist” By John Lerner, PEACH Magazine 2007
Many of Murphy's works have a nostalgic presence and attest to the notion of the artist as a collector and preserver of oddities from other eras. Murphys sculptures of dusty, wooden hat, forms, arranged within a rusty, rolling metal shelf or four in it first glimpse—the cracked and weathered surfaces of the varied forms conjure up eerie associations, as if the artist hasn't covered an abandoned work room from a distant past. The white walls of the museum environment further offer a striking contrast to the rustic quality of Murphy's presentation of these antique forms.---- catalogue essay MOCA Jacksonville
The horse is a heroic subject throughout art history and conveys physical strength and fortitude. No doubt these traits resonate with the artist. this subject is further explored in a mixed media work in which the artist has attached the bones of a horses leg to a panel, covered with antique red velvet.
Murphy's fascinating exploration with scale is beautifully illustrated in this exhibition in “untitled” (studio). The work is a bewildering, miniature artist, studio, meticulously, crafted by murphy, the rustic confines of the scale down studio, arranged with an assortment of found objects, such as sepia photographs, skeletal specimens, tiny drawings and diagrams affixed to the wall and a shrunken work-table strewn with sketchbooks the artist serves as the inhabitant of this uncanny environment creating small scale works and rearranging its delicate contents, as if it were a functioning studio. ---- catalog essay