Murphy Studio Film MARCH 31, 2016 4:17PM

Oh, that sculptors could paint paintings as well as he makes sculptures.

Donald Locke, “A World Apart, Todd Murphy’s ‘The New World’ at Fay Gold Gallery, 1995
Donald Locke (1930-2010) Painter, writer, sculptor, ceramicist and writer
link to Locke’s website underlined
Donald Locke artist’s Legacy website
I visited Murphy at his studio at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and have never been so moved by an artist working Space.

Adam Lehrer , 2016
Forbes “Artist Todd Murphy creates Discourse through Beauty” 2016

the artist Todd Murphy, 2016, in his studio in Brooklyn New York

“Murphy's work feels anachronistic, like it's swimming against a contemporary tide that moves toward a shore of disenchantment.”

— SEPH RODNEY 2022

NO MORE RACES TO RUN, by Seph Rodney, New York, NY, 2022

Todd Murphy Studio film APRIL 4, 2016 9:56PM

“Todd Murphy’s Gesamtkunstwerk required not things to say so much as ways to say them, and the arc of his art takes us from declaration to account to poem.”

— PETER FRANK 2023

TODD MURPHY: BREADTH OF A POET, by Peter Frank, Los Angeles 2022

MARCH 31 2016 11:10 AM

He could never run out of subject matter;

indeed, he – not to mention his audience – could hardly keep up with the subjects, and possibilities, at hand. But Murphy’s hand was as deft as his mind was voracious, and he never let the allure on one subject (-cum-project) distract him from the realization of another. —Peter Frank

TODD MURPHY: BREADTH OF A POET, by PETER FRANK

APRIL 4, 2016 6:58 PM

For all his expansiveness and breadth of spirit, Murphy’s vision was deeply interiorized.

He had to coax it constantly out of its shadowy, even sepulchral mode. It is that darkness and quietude that establishes the dimmed and localized light pervading his imagery, a kind of Old Master – specifically Caravaggesque – commingling of murk and brilliance.

TODD MURPHY: BREADTH OF A POET, by PETER FRANK

For information on Todd Murphy available works Stag follow the link below or go to navigation and select Murphy studio Shop

Link to available work

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MARCH 29, 2016 12:53PM

One of the major narratives that I’m working on is a narrative which is an ocean, sailing narrative, there are characters, see a screenplay coming out of this narrative I’m building. it takes place in a vague ocean setting. Landless, literally, and country less, boundary-less.

True possibility for exchange

Dialogue

From a draft transcription of Todd’s words 2017-2018.

MARCH 29, 2016 7:46 PM

Go back to romans and greeks and ulysses, odyssey.

Voyages of exploration and redemption very interesting to me

Whaling ships, in 1851 when Moby dick was published a whaling ship was a multicultural, floating universe of everyman. From a draft transcription of Todd’s words 2017-2018.

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Our culture constantly reminds us of the ugly underbelly of things. Murphy lets us instead be bewitched.

—Seph Rodney
Hyperallergic: Todd Murphy, Seeing Spectral Visions In Fulsome Skirts by Seph Rodney, 2016
Murphy's work feels anachronistic, like it's swimming against a contemporary tide that moves toward a shore of disenchantment

—Seph Rodney
Hyperallergic: Todd Murphy, Seeing Spectral Visions In Fulsome Skirts by Seph Rodney, 2016
he poetically manifests that tenuous relation between the sign and how it might be physically expressed.

—Seph Rodney
Hyperallergic: Todd Murphy, Seeing Spectral Visions In Fulsome Skirts by Seph Rodney, 2016
"Stag in the Woods"...... a deer alone in a forest during winter. The animal stands far back in the picture plane and is surrounded by tall trees.

Kate Murphy
Art Fuse, 2016
Using only variations of black and white, Murphy has created a compelling impression that expresses the sanctity of natural world.

Kate Murphy
Art Fuse, 2016
"Stag in the Woods"...... a deer alone in a forest during winter. The animal stands far back in the picture plane and is surrounded by tall trees. Using only variations of black and white, Murphy has created a compelling impression that expresses the sanctity of natural world.

Kate Murphy
Art Fuse, 2016
Murphy's work feels anachronistic, like it's swimming against a contemporary tide that moves toward a shore of disenchantment. Our culture constantly reminds us of the ugly underbelly of things. Murphy lets us instead be bewitched.

—Seph Rodney
Hyperallergic: Todd Murphy, Seeing Spectral Visions In Fulsome Skirts by Seph Rodney
He poetically manifests that tenuous relation between the sign and how it might be physically expressed. For example, a large photographic print of a stag (over which the artist has placed plexiglass embellished with paint) has a spray of branches sprouting from its head; these function as both a regal crown of antlers and a way to render the animal part of the natural scheme that includes the growth of trees.

—Seph Rodney
Hyperallergic: Todd Murphy, Seeing Spectral Visions In Fulsome Skirts

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Murphy made his reputation not just on this message of equality, but on his ambitious, virtuosic delivery of that message in paintings, sculptures, work on paper, installations, the more-than-occasional found object, and whatever else served his restless inquest.

PETER FRANK
Such hybrid assemblies often took on an operatic vastness; certainly, they embrace the theatrical and point to the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk, the Wagnerian “total work of art” that conflates discrete media and disciplines into a unified, if multivalent, experience

PETER FRANK
Here, too, Murphy exercised impressive foresight early on. Later, he re-examined his own approach to the Gesamtkunstwerk, turning to digital technology to deepen the intricacy and resonance of his work.

PETER FRANK
Murphy was restrained in his incorporation of computers and video projectors; it was clear that a wholesale turn to the digital would divert him down a rabbit hole, swallowing the febrile images and dramas that he already had flickering at the margins of perception.

PETER FRANK
He created stages, panoramas, gnarled presences, paintings in which the void surrounding and swallowing human and other figures was itself a character in the pageant.

PETER FRANK
The electronic element came in not as an issue or gesture, but simply as technical expansion.

PETER FRANK
Still, there it was, connecting Murphy formally to the 21st century – just as he was connected to the 20th and 19th.

PETER FRANK

TODD MURPHY STUDIO FILM

STAG IN WOODS APRIL 2016

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Oh, that sculptors could paint paintings as well as he makes sculptures.

Donald Locke , “Todd Murphy A New World”, 1995
“It all becomes part of a bigger pattern. We have our time, we send out our signals and we move on. And that becomes part of a bigger pattern.”

Todd Murphy
1998 Images that speak for themselves By Brena Sanchez
"Are you exploring how tech and nature work together?"

Adam Lehrer 2016 Forbes
And how they’re merging.

Todd Murphy 2016
Intellectually, trying to wrap my head around AI and eternal existence, I had to ask myself, “What is human?” We are the network. We always have been. Humans are pack animals and we’re becoming networked.

Todd Murphy 2016 Forbes interview

Todd Murphy Studio photograph 2016
photo by Sam Matamoros — Todd Murphy Studio photograph 2016 photo by Sam Matamoros

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by JUGULAR (@jugularmag)

Oh, that sculptors could paint paintings as well as he makes sculptures.

I visited Murphy at his studio at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and have never been so moved by an artist working Space.

“Murphy's work feels anachronistic, like it's swimming against a contemporary tide that moves toward a shore of disenchantment.”

Todd Murphy Studio film APRIL 4, 2016 9:56PM

“Todd Murphy’s Gesamtkunstwerk required not things to say so much as ways to say them, and the arc of his art takes us from declaration to account to poem.”

He could never run out of subject matter;

For all his expansiveness and breadth of spirit, Murphy’s vision was deeply interiorized.

For information on Todd Murphy available works Stag follow the link below or go to navigation and select Murphy studio Shop

Our culture constantly reminds us of the ugly underbelly of things. Murphy lets us instead be bewitched.

Murphy's work feels anachronistic, like it's swimming against a contemporary tide that moves toward a shore of disenchantment

he poetically manifests that tenuous relation between the sign and how it might be physically expressed.

"Stag in the Woods"...... a deer alone in a forest during winter. The animal stands far back in the picture plane and is surrounded by tall trees.

Using only variations of black and white, Murphy has created a compelling impression that expresses the sanctity of natural world.

"Stag in the Woods"...... a deer alone in a forest during winter. The animal stands far back in the picture plane and is surrounded by tall trees. Using only variations of black and white, Murphy has created a compelling impression that expresses the sanctity of natural world.

Murphy's work feels anachronistic, like it's swimming against a contemporary tide that moves toward a shore of disenchantment. Our culture constantly reminds us of the ugly underbelly of things. Murphy lets us instead be bewitched.

Murphy made his reputation not just on this message of equality, but on his ambitious, virtuosic delivery of that message in paintings, sculptures, work on paper, installations, the more-than-occasional found object, and whatever else served his restless inquest.

Such hybrid assemblies often took on an operatic vastness; certainly, they embrace the theatrical and point to the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk, the Wagnerian “total work of art” that conflates discrete media and disciplines into a unified, if multivalent, experience

Here, too, Murphy exercised impressive foresight early on. Later, he re-examined his own approach to the Gesamtkunstwerk, turning to digital technology to deepen the intricacy and resonance of his work.

Murphy was restrained in his incorporation of computers and video projectors; it was clear that a wholesale turn to the digital would divert him down a rabbit hole, swallowing the febrile images and dramas that he already had flickering at the margins of perception.

He created stages, panoramas, gnarled presences, paintings in which the void surrounding and swallowing human and other figures was itself a character in the pageant.

The electronic element came in not as an issue or gesture, but simply as technical expansion.

Still, there it was, connecting Murphy formally to the 21st century – just as he was connected to the 20th and 19th.

Oh, that sculptors could paint paintings as well as he makes sculptures.

“It all becomes part of a bigger pattern. We have our time, we send out our signals and we move on. And that becomes part of a bigger pattern.”

"Are you exploring how tech and nature work together?"

And how they’re merging.

Intellectually, trying to wrap my head around AI and eternal existence, I had to ask myself, “What is human?” We are the network. We always have been. Humans are pack animals and we’re becoming networked.

TODD MURPHY (1962-2020)