Katie Murphy
September 28th – November 9th
ABOUT THE ARTIST…
Katie Murphy holds a BFA in Studio Art from East Tennessee State University and is currently pursuing an MFA in Studio Art from Maryland Institute College of Art. Murphy is a painter working with ideas of personal feminism. She grew up in Mississippi where cultural norms and expectations had a profound impact on her and continue to provide avenues to addressing and rethinking contemporary womanhood. Questions of propriety and inhabited space inform her expressive figurative paintings. Murphy currently lives and works in Johnson City, TN.
Slippers of Fire
by Katie Murphy
How do we allow and encourage exploration and discovery within ourselves? How also do we come together with others to explore and change together? The burning nature of desire and want may well change the landscape of one’s life when we give ourselves over to it. I am interested in the choices that individuals make that bring them to a specific place in their lives and in the energy and actions they may take to change their circumstances. In Slippers of Fire, I am examining these ideas along with the relational dynamics that exist between bodies, lovers, sisters, children, and the self. I am interested in movement. What does moving away from a stagnant life look like? What can a place or a space give you, and when is it time to move on? At times, the distance achieved by leaving a certain scenario will allow the clarity to see how you’ve been equipped and where you’ve been left wanting. Consider the setting of our lives, the place from which we start. Our context. As someone born and raised in the South, I find richness in considering such a strong cultural influence as my own setting and all that may mean for my perspective as I move out into the world. These paintings represent and explore my relationships: with myself, my family, my friends, and with Southern culture, especially in the context of being a woman. I consider the places and spaces where I’ve been allowed to exist, and I find myself questioning the containers offered. I am looking for avenues of choice and agency, for cracks within the traditional narrative that was drawn up for me.
Desire is an integral part of my creative process. Through expressive representation, I am physically embodying the relationship I seek to explore. I am taking the figures and their settings into my own body through the act of painting. My reference images come from personal photos and videos of people I know and share an orbit with. They are often specific memories and moments in time which ground my work. These figurative paintings enter another realm of dynamism as the image breaks apart and becomes abstracted. I love color and I enjoy the palpable tension in the work created by color relationships. In this body of work, I’m drawn to the fluorescents as immediate energy. The intensity of the colors I’m working with communicates that desire manifesting through the heat and fire of want.
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