John Murphy plays on the themes of similarity and difference—with existing materials such as reproductions, old film stills, and postcards. His works often evoke nostalgia, absence, and sexuality, with exquisite subtlety and refinement. As Colette Dubois points out in a recent critical essay in H.Art, “To these found elements, the artist sometimes associates a fragment of text; these few words, often part of the work, become its title. They produce a dialectical interplay in which association, interval, and ellipsis—three typically cinematic operations, particularly linked to editing—play a key role. What happens in the in-between space between image and words—where meaning is created—is precisely what interests the artist. It is a variable present that is at stake.” The artist considers each presentation as a new configuration of the works, each of which then becomes a fragment of a new constellation: everything happens between the image and its title, the relationship to other images/titles in a space which in turn becomes a work.

John Murphy, born in 1945, lives and works in London. His major exhibitions include:

– Selected works Museum of Modern Art Oxford 1975

– John Murphy Whitechapel Art Gallery London 1987-88 & Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol 1988,

 – John Murphy Villa Arson, Nice 1997,

– And things throw Light of Things Ikon Gallery and Barber Institute, Birmingham, 2004-05

– Up or Down it’s All the Same; in Ghent or Venice » Het Kabinet, Gent 2005

– John Murphy Of Voyages, Of Others Places, Trondheim Kunstmuseum, 2013

– Opéra Monde La quête d’un art total, Centre Pompidou Metz 2019-2020