Artist Statement

Deirdre Murphy, 2008

Birds are ephemeral and temporal by nature possessing the unique ability to occupy both air and earth; they have the freedom to go anywhere. The peregrinatious birds of Philadelphia are inspiring because they see the colorful landscapes and boundless skies that I long to see but can only imagine. It is this exuberant, elusory quality of life embodied by birds that I explore in my paintings.

In each painting a specific bird and its environment are juxtaposed with invented spaces and abstract forms to challenge the notion of real and abstract, temporal and ethereal, evanescent and eternal. A hummingbird darts quickly, flitting from flower to flower through the dense flora that bursts through a pulsating thicket of abstract shapes into a tonally muted landscape. The rhythm in the palette is fast and slow, the application of paint is bold and intricate, and the pictorial space is both flat and deep. These paintings are filled with harmony and discord symbolic of delicious moments that are tangible, yet elude clear perception; elements found in nature and mirrored in life.

The bird imagery came in tandem with my exploration of Japanese landscape painting inspired by a year abroad in Japan, and these memories still influence my work today. When I was very young, I lived in Paris, France and Manchester, England where memories of the villas in the mountainside, cloisters and cathedrals still inform my paintings. I combine both Eastern and Western sensibilities in my paintings to simultaneously compress and expand space.

The Natural Academy of Science has been generous with their collection and has allowed me to privately draw and paint from their exhibits. I am intrigued by the musty dioramas with their artificial containment of nature. I have also made frequent trips to a taxidermy tavern in Western Pennsylvania where I photographed their collection of exquisitely posed taxidermy deer in glass cases. The Philadelphia Zoo has been a source of inspiration with their contrived natural habitats and diverse species.

“Artifice”, the title of my solo show at the Bridgette Mayer Gallery is the realization of my research. My paintings have evolved from these artificial dioramas, the zoo’s habitat exhibits and other contrived spaces. The chicanery lies in the contrast of nature housed in artificial settings. I find this contrast of real and artificial to be amusing, awkward and beautiful. On a deeper level, this contrast reveals an illusory longing, both to assimilate with nature, but yet to recognize our separateness.