The Gloss Magazine
Artistic Licence
by Penny McCormick
A conversation with Sharon Murphy
https://thegloss.ie/artistic-license-sharon-murphy/
Artistic Licence
by Penny McCormick
A conversation with Sharon Murphy
https://thegloss.ie/artistic-license-sharon-murphy/
Irish artist Sharon Murphy draws
on theatre, magic realism and psychoanalysis for her new exhibition at Golden
Thread Gallery, Belfast
Who or what kickstarted your interest in art?
I came to art through theatre. I worked as an actor and later in theatre education with various theatre companies including the Abbey Theatre. The early immersion in dramatic space (the stage, the rehearsal room, scenography, and the imaginative world between text and performance) shaped the foundations of my practice. I was drawn to the sheer humanity of theatre, to its vast range: madness, grief, violence, love, tenderness. To the full complexity of human interaction played out through bodies in space and, through the charged presence of the audience. All of life is possible there.
Peter Brook’s idea that theatre begins with an empty space, someone crossing it, and someone watching has always stayed with me. It speaks to presence, attention, temporality and the possibility of transformation. What compels me is the dynamism of that moment: the live interaction of body, space and viewer. This is the essence of mise en scene.
Photography arrived later, formally at least, though it had been present since childhood. I spent time as a teenager in my uncle’s photography studio and darkroom, absorbing the quiet discipline and material magic of the process. When I eventually turned to photography as an artistic practice, it felt like a natural extension of the sensibility I had carried through theatre: a fascination with what can and can’t be seen, with atmosphere, interiority, and the suspended moment and that charged space between veracity and illusion. As in theatre, mise en scène is central: the work begins with the arrangement of elements; the relationship between the subject and the space around it, and how the viewer is invited in.
How do you describe your photography?
My photography is shaped by a theatrical sensibility and by an interest in the psychological and the uncanny. I conceive of space as staged. I draw from theatre, psychoanalysis and magic realism, working in spaces that already carry their own atmospheres, such as stages, rehearsal rooms, fairground architectures, transitional environments. I’m drawn to curtains, veils, coverings, thresholds, and partial views: places where something seems about to reveal itself, or remain withheld.
I look for images that hold a slightly disquieting stillness. They play with the tension between what looks real and what feels real, echoing that moment when the familiar becomes strange. The viewer is implicated: the act of looking becomes part of the image. Increasingly, I’m interested in the sculptural qualities of the photographic surface, and in constructing layered visual narratives that feel both tangible and metaphorical. Real and imagined spaces fold into each other, offering a glimpse, a fissure, a portal: a scene paused on the edge of recognition.
How and where do you work?
I work between Dublin and Paris. These two locations create a natural rhythm in my practice: Dublin offers continuity and reflection; Paris offers immersion in the spaces and atmospheres that have become central to my recent work. I love working in cafés too – writing, and reading (mainly autofiction).
The studio in Dublin is where I write, research, reflect, edit and plan. It’s a room of my own where ideas can form and I can stick images and texts on white walls. The images themselves are made on location. I spend long periods in theatres, rehearsal rooms, outdoor staged spaces and most recently in in Parisian parks, responding directly to their atmospheres and their implicit sense of performance. Paris has been central to this process. I developed and first presented Mise en Abyme there, working with Parisian carousels and theatrical structures. They’re both spaces that hold simultaneously fantasy and melancholy, surface and secret. It allowed me to explore staged stillness, illusion and the uncanny. I like working with curators in a slow, developmental way, allowing the work to unfold through conversation, time and careful attention to place. Each iteration of Mise en Abyme has been shaped by the curators (Nora Hickey M’Schilli, Centre Culturel Irlandais, Trish Lambe and Darren Campion, Photo Museum Ireland, and Sarah McAvera, Golden Thread Gallery) and has altered, shifted and expanded due to the specifics of the sites.
Your work is inspired by theatre, magic realism and psychoanalysis – how have these themes evolved over time?
They have evolved as parallel languages that eventually converged. Theatre gave me an understanding of presence, staging and the charged emptiness of a paused moment. Magic realism allows the improbable or the uncanny to sit quietly within the everyday. Psychoanalysis, particularly ideas around memory, doubling, and the instability of perception, shaped my interest in the gap between what is seen and what is sensed.
Over time, these threads intertwined. What began as an interest in theatrical stillness grew into a deeper enquiry into the fictive real: the way photography can operate as both documentation and misdirection. It is both indexical and constructed., like our family albums. My work now explores the slight fractures between perception and reality, truth and falsehood, concealment and revelation. I think of each image as a proposition: an invitation to step into a space where illusion and reality intermingle, and where the viewer’s own associations animate what lies behind or before the curtain.
Need to Know: Sharon’s exhibition Mise en Abyme runs until January 31 at Golden Thread Gallery, 23-29 Queen Street, Belfast, Co Antrim; www.goldenthreadgallery.co.uk. @sharon_murphy_atelier.
Who or what kickstarted your interest in art?
I came to art through theatre. I worked as an actor and later in theatre education with various theatre companies including the Abbey Theatre. The early immersion in dramatic space (the stage, the rehearsal room, scenography, and the imaginative world between text and performance) shaped the foundations of my practice. I was drawn to the sheer humanity of theatre, to its vast range: madness, grief, violence, love, tenderness. To the full complexity of human interaction played out through bodies in space and, through the charged presence of the audience. All of life is possible there.
Peter Brook’s idea that theatre begins with an empty space, someone crossing it, and someone watching has always stayed with me. It speaks to presence, attention, temporality and the possibility of transformation. What compels me is the dynamism of that moment: the live interaction of body, space and viewer. This is the essence of mise en scene.
Photography arrived later, formally at least, though it had been present since childhood. I spent time as a teenager in my uncle’s photography studio and darkroom, absorbing the quiet discipline and material magic of the process. When I eventually turned to photography as an artistic practice, it felt like a natural extension of the sensibility I had carried through theatre: a fascination with what can and can’t be seen, with atmosphere, interiority, and the suspended moment and that charged space between veracity and illusion. As in theatre, mise en scène is central: the work begins with the arrangement of elements; the relationship between the subject and the space around it, and how the viewer is invited in.
How do you describe your photography?
My photography is shaped by a theatrical sensibility and by an interest in the psychological and the uncanny. I conceive of space as staged. I draw from theatre, psychoanalysis and magic realism, working in spaces that already carry their own atmospheres, such as stages, rehearsal rooms, fairground architectures, transitional environments. I’m drawn to curtains, veils, coverings, thresholds, and partial views: places where something seems about to reveal itself, or remain withheld.
I look for images that hold a slightly disquieting stillness. They play with the tension between what looks real and what feels real, echoing that moment when the familiar becomes strange. The viewer is implicated: the act of looking becomes part of the image. Increasingly, I’m interested in the sculptural qualities of the photographic surface, and in constructing layered visual narratives that feel both tangible and metaphorical. Real and imagined spaces fold into each other, offering a glimpse, a fissure, a portal: a scene paused on the edge of recognition.
How and where do you work?
I work between Dublin and Paris. These two locations create a natural rhythm in my practice: Dublin offers continuity and reflection; Paris offers immersion in the spaces and atmospheres that have become central to my recent work. I love working in cafés too – writing, and reading (mainly autofiction).
The studio in Dublin is where I write, research, reflect, edit and plan. It’s a room of my own where ideas can form and I can stick images and texts on white walls. The images themselves are made on location. I spend long periods in theatres, rehearsal rooms, outdoor staged spaces and most recently in in Parisian parks, responding directly to their atmospheres and their implicit sense of performance. Paris has been central to this process. I developed and first presented Mise en Abyme there, working with Parisian carousels and theatrical structures. They’re both spaces that hold simultaneously fantasy and melancholy, surface and secret. It allowed me to explore staged stillness, illusion and the uncanny. I like working with curators in a slow, developmental way, allowing the work to unfold through conversation, time and careful attention to place. Each iteration of Mise en Abyme has been shaped by the curators (Nora Hickey M’Schilli, Centre Culturel Irlandais, Trish Lambe and Darren Campion, Photo Museum Ireland, and Sarah McAvera, Golden Thread Gallery) and has altered, shifted and expanded due to the specifics of the sites.
Your work is inspired by theatre, magic realism and psychoanalysis – how have these themes evolved over time?
They have evolved as parallel languages that eventually converged. Theatre gave me an understanding of presence, staging and the charged emptiness of a paused moment. Magic realism allows the improbable or the uncanny to sit quietly within the everyday. Psychoanalysis, particularly ideas around memory, doubling, and the instability of perception, shaped my interest in the gap between what is seen and what is sensed.
Over time, these threads intertwined. What began as an interest in theatrical stillness grew into a deeper enquiry into the fictive real: the way photography can operate as both documentation and misdirection. It is both indexical and constructed., like our family albums. My work now explores the slight fractures between perception and reality, truth and falsehood, concealment and revelation. I think of each image as a proposition: an invitation to step into a space where illusion and reality intermingle, and where the viewer’s own associations animate what lies behind or before the curtain.
Need to Know: Sharon’s exhibition Mise en Abyme runs until January 31 at Golden Thread Gallery, 23-29 Queen Street, Belfast, Co Antrim; www.goldenthreadgallery.co.uk. @sharon_murphy_atelier.
Mise en abyme
22 November 2025 – 31 January 2026
Golden Thread Gallery Belfast
Curated by Sarah McAvera
Originally commissioned and presented by Nora Hickey M’Schili Centre Culture Irlandais
Golden Thread Gallery presents a new exhibition by artist Sharon Murphy, curated by Sarah McAvera.
Murphy draws from her background in theatre and influences from psychoanalysis and magic realism. Delving into theatrical settings, she captures moments of quiet and stillness. Through recurring symbols such as curtains, deserted stages, and performative environments, she investigates the thin line between illusion and reality, presence and absence.
Murphy constructs layered visual narratives that are both captivating and unsettling. Her photographs intentionally reference Freud’s concept of the ‘uncanny,’ where the familiar takes on a strange, eerie quality, underscoring the inherently performative aspects of looking and being observed.
This solo exhibition represents a pivotal development in Murphy’s recent practice, and an exciting opportunity to work with Golden Thread Gallery curator Sarah McAvera, merging conceptual ideas with intensified attention to the sculptural qualities of the photographic image. Real and imagined spaces merge, drawing the viewer into realms that are both tangible and metaphorical.
Further Details:
https://goldenthreadgallery.co.uk/event/mise-en-abyme-sharon-murphy/
Mise en Abyme is the third iteration of the exhibition, previously exhibited at the Irish Cultural Centre, Paris (curated by Nora Hickey M’Schili) and at Photo Museum Ireland (curated by Trish Lambe and Darren Campion). The exhibition at Golden Thread Gallery will include a new video work made in collaboration with Belfast photographer Simon Mills and dance artist Argyro Tsampazi.
With thanks to Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris and Draiocht, Blanchardstown.
Murphy draws from her background in theatre and influences from psychoanalysis and magic realism. Delving into theatrical settings, she captures moments of quiet and stillness. Through recurring symbols such as curtains, deserted stages, and performative environments, she investigates the thin line between illusion and reality, presence and absence.
Murphy constructs layered visual narratives that are both captivating and unsettling. Her photographs intentionally reference Freud’s concept of the ‘uncanny,’ where the familiar takes on a strange, eerie quality, underscoring the inherently performative aspects of looking and being observed.
This solo exhibition represents a pivotal development in Murphy’s recent practice, and an exciting opportunity to work with Golden Thread Gallery curator Sarah McAvera, merging conceptual ideas with intensified attention to the sculptural qualities of the photographic image. Real and imagined spaces merge, drawing the viewer into realms that are both tangible and metaphorical.
Further Details:
https://goldenthreadgallery.co.uk/event/mise-en-abyme-sharon-murphy/
Mise en Abyme is the third iteration of the exhibition, previously exhibited at the Irish Cultural Centre, Paris (curated by Nora Hickey M’Schili) and at Photo Museum Ireland (curated by Trish Lambe and Darren Campion). The exhibition at Golden Thread Gallery will include a new video work made in collaboration with Belfast photographer Simon Mills and dance artist Argyro Tsampazi.
With thanks to Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris and Draiocht, Blanchardstown.
Insight into the Other
14 Nov 2025 – 21 Feb 2026
Uinversity Hall Gallery UMass Boston
Curated by Sam Toabe and Sarah McAvera
14 Nov 2025 – 21 Feb 2026
Uinversity Hall Gallery UMass Boston
Curated by Sam Toabe and Sarah McAvera
Insight into the Other is a group exhibition with artists: Ciara Finnegan, Sandra Johnston, Shiro Masuyama, Sharon Murphy, Sinéad O’Donnell, Peter Richards, Elvira Santamaría, and Una Walker
Do we find insight into ourselves in the artworks that we experience? Do we use them as a prompt to confirm our own values? Or, do we use them as proof of “otherness?” Has the meaning of “the other” changed in the current political and social climate? Do we use the concept of “the other” as a means of maintaining the status quo?
The selection of artworks for Insight into the Other will be drawn from the collection of the Golden Thread Gallery and focuses on those whose meanings change according to the time and space they are shown in. All blur boundaries around what they are and what they appear to be, or could be, based on its relationship to the experience of the viewer and vice versa. Some works will be restaged for the first time in many years, shown in alternative presentations that provoke the viewer into being part of the work, leading them to question what they are seeing and experiencing. The multitude of alternate readings undermine the stability of the viewing process and our sense of self and sense of the “other.”
The exhibition exchange will result in Insight into the Other at the University Hall Gallery curated by Golden Thread Gallery’s Co-Director Sarah McAvera in collaboration with our Gallery Director, Sam Toabe. This collaborative exchange will will overlap with a group exhibition at the Golden Thread Gallery in Belfast composed of studio art faculty, staff, and alumni from UMass Boston’s Art & Art History Department, opening in 2026.
Do we find insight into ourselves in the artworks that we experience? Do we use them as a prompt to confirm our own values? Or, do we use them as proof of “otherness?” Has the meaning of “the other” changed in the current political and social climate? Do we use the concept of “the other” as a means of maintaining the status quo?
The selection of artworks for Insight into the Other will be drawn from the collection of the Golden Thread Gallery and focuses on those whose meanings change according to the time and space they are shown in. All blur boundaries around what they are and what they appear to be, or could be, based on its relationship to the experience of the viewer and vice versa. Some works will be restaged for the first time in many years, shown in alternative presentations that provoke the viewer into being part of the work, leading them to question what they are seeing and experiencing. The multitude of alternate readings undermine the stability of the viewing process and our sense of self and sense of the “other.”
The exhibition exchange will result in Insight into the Other at the University Hall Gallery curated by Golden Thread Gallery’s Co-Director Sarah McAvera in collaboration with our Gallery Director, Sam Toabe. This collaborative exchange will will overlap with a group exhibition at the Golden Thread Gallery in Belfast composed of studio art faculty, staff, and alumni from UMass Boston’s Art & Art History Department, opening in 2026.
Mise en abyme
01 May – 29 June 2025
Photo Museum Ireland
Curated by Trish Lambe abd Darren Campion.
Originally commissioned and presented by Nora Hicket M’Schili Centre Culture Irlandais
01 May – 29 June 2025
Photo Museum Ireland
Curated by Trish Lambe abd Darren Campion.
Originally commissioned and presented by Nora Hicket M’Schili Centre Culture Irlandais
Photo Museum Ireland is delighted to present the Irish premiere of Sharon Murphy’s
new body of work Mise en Abyme, which focuses on Parisian carousels and
theatrical décor during moments of stillness and silence. Drawing on her background
in theatre and informed by concepts from psychoanalysis and magic realism in
literature, this new work highlights Murphy’s longstanding interest in staged spaces
and the performative in photography.
Murphy uses this concept as a metaphor to investigate the boundaries between real and fictive spaces, concentrating on recurring motifs of theatre curtains, outdoor carousels, circus tents, performative sites, city parks and empty stages.
These scenes become the point of departure for a wider exploration of the tension between hidden and revealed, negative and positive, illusion and disillusion. This work addresses the essential nature of photographic seeing, performance, and Freud’s notion of the uncanny where the familiar becomes suddenly strange and disconcerting through a play between presence and absence, evoking both enchantment and a pang of unease.
This series marks a significant evolution in Murphy’s practice both conceptually and in terms of using the materiality of the photographic images, with an emphasis on the sculptural presence of the work, blurring the boundaries between real and represented space. The worlds implied or symbolised are both actual and potential, characterised by a capacity to juxtapose several spaces and instances of time and experience within one tangible space and where tropes of the mise en abyme – doubleness, reflexivity, repetition, mirroring – play out.
Murphy uses this concept as a metaphor to investigate the boundaries between real and fictive spaces, concentrating on recurring motifs of theatre curtains, outdoor carousels, circus tents, performative sites, city parks and empty stages.
These scenes become the point of departure for a wider exploration of the tension between hidden and revealed, negative and positive, illusion and disillusion. This work addresses the essential nature of photographic seeing, performance, and Freud’s notion of the uncanny where the familiar becomes suddenly strange and disconcerting through a play between presence and absence, evoking both enchantment and a pang of unease.
This series marks a significant evolution in Murphy’s practice both conceptually and in terms of using the materiality of the photographic images, with an emphasis on the sculptural presence of the work, blurring the boundaries between real and represented space. The worlds implied or symbolised are both actual and potential, characterised by a capacity to juxtapose several spaces and instances of time and experience within one tangible space and where tropes of the mise en abyme – doubleness, reflexivity, repetition, mirroring – play out.
Individual Artist Awards 2025
Carlow County Council Artist Development Award
Carlow County Council Artist Development Award
I am delighted to be awarded a grant from Carlow County Council to support the development of new work in 2025 and am most grateful to the selectors and the Arts Office staff.
