Today we’d like to introduce you to Christopher Murphy.
Hi Christopher, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My interest in art started as far back as I can remember. I was drawing holiday cards for my family starting at about age five, which my incredibly supportive parents still display on their mantle every year. I also had the benefit of a robust arts program and absolutely wonderful elementary school art teacher. Her name is Janet Logan, and she has, in a show of support some decades later, attended most of my art openings at various galleries. I began auditing life drawing classes at the local art college while still in high school in an effort to begin building a portfolio, knowing that I wanted to attend art school myself one day. I did obtain a BFA from ArtCenter in Pasadena, California, studying fine art and illustration under some really influential teachers such as F.Scott Hess, Peter Zokosky, Aaron Smith, Peter Liashkov, and the Clayton Brothers. While there, I was lucky to be pointed in the direction of Lora Schlesinger, an LA gallerist who began representing me right out of art school. I showed with her for nearly two decades until her retirement, and am now fortunate to be represented by Billis Williams Gallery in Los Angeles, where my first solo show with the gallery is currently on display.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I feel extremely fortunate for the artistic journey that I have had. Not to say that I haven’t worked very hard to get where I am (long days and late-night painting sessions burning the midnight oil are the norm for me, as my painting technique is rather laborious), but I have had a really strong support system along the way, without which I certainly couldn’t be doing what I am doing. As stated in my story earlier, my family never wavered in their fostering of my nascent artistic curiosities, and I was also lucky to have some fabulous teachers along my journey to offer encouragement, technical counsel, and career guidance. Additionally, I have been able to flourish under the representation of two keen and compassionate women, Lora Schlesinger and Tressa Williams, who have offered their trust and insight in equal measure. Again, I have worked very hard to learn to become as good a painter as I possibly could be, but all of that work would have meant little without being nurtured and cultivated by such a knowledgeable and caring network of people.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a fine artist who makes representational oil paintings. My paintings would likely be described as realism or sometimes even photorealism, and I do use found photography as a jumping-off point for my art. I have long been drawn to found photos for their ostensible qualities of candidness, permanence, and accuracy, and am keen to explore the relationship that painting can have with these purported qualities. I like to start with photos that I get from family albums, estate sales, or antique stores (never the internet), then dramatically restage the action, recontextualize figures, or graft on invented scenarios. These paintings, then, become false verisimilitudes (that’s artspeak for the appearance of being real), painterly facsimiles of photos that never may have existed or events that never may have happened. They are meant to feel at once solid and destabilizing. I paint with a thick matte impasto surface made up of many layers so that there is a tension between the heavily textured paintings and the smooth, glossy photos which they relate to. This ambivalent relationship between photography and painting is what I feel is most unique about my art.
Can you share something surprising about yourself?
Outside of painting, I love to work with my hands. I make much of my clothing on a sewing machine given to me as a gift by my parents. I also love woodworking and carpentry and have made much of the furniture that populates my house, from sideboards to lamps to dining tables and chairs.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.christophermurphyfineart.com
