Centre Culturel Irlandais, Open Studio
Paris Sept- Oct 2023  


Sharon Murphy is a lens-based artist whose work investigates the boundaries between the seen/unseen, fictive/real, conscious/(sub)liminal. Drawing on a background in theatre and informed by concepts in magic realism and psychoanalysis, recurring motifs in her work include: theatre curtains; carousels; performative sites; embodied/disembodied staged spaces.  

During her residency she will develop a series of photographs based on Parisian Carousels and other sites of performance, using as a starting point Freud’s notion of the uncanny: that class of terrifying which leads back to something long known to us, once very familiar.

 
Open Studios at CCI 15th Sept 2023



Irish Arts Review Autumn 2023, Volume 40, Number 3

but here alone
Stephanie McBride looks at Sharon Murphy’s latest photographic series, which is informed by magic realism.

“The term ‘magic realism’, which originated in the field of art criticism in the 1930s, is a slippery one. It describes how dual realities, including magical elements, coexist to challenge an audience’s perceptions. In Angela Carter’s 1984 novel Nights at the Circus, for example, when a lavish setting is seen in the ‘cold light of early dawn’, readers learn that ‘the luxury… had been nothing but illusion, created by the candles of midnight’. Magic realism also informs ‘but here alone’, Dublin-based artist Sharon Murphy’s work in progress about the real and imaginary in Parisian carousels. The project arises from what she describes as a ‘longstanding interest in staged spaces and the performative in photography’.”

︎Irish Arts Review




‘Shelter’ 
National Gallery of  Ireland
Curator Anne Hodge 
8 July–12 November 2023
Shelter’ opening July 8 at NGI (Prints and Drawing Gallery) with new individual and collaborative works by Shell/Ter Artists Collective alongside 16 works from the National Collection and works by five international contemporary artists, Tom Hunter, Gulsen K, Sharon Kelly, Daniel Pitin, Liliane Tomasko.




Individual Artists Awards 2023
Dun Laoghaire Rathdown + Carlow Co Co Arts Office
As a recent recipient of two awards from Carlow and Dun Laoghaire County Councils I am most grateful to the selectors and the Arts Office staff. 



Shell/Ter Artist Collective Exhibition at National Gallery of Ireland
July–November 2023 
Shelter will highlight new artworks created by the five members of the Shell/Ter Artist Collective (S/TAC). Diana Copperwhite, Allyson Keehan, Niamh McGuinne, Sharon Murphy and Geraldine O’Neill work in a variety of formats: painting, sculpture, expanded print and photography. Their work will be complemented by a selection of objects from the Gallery’s collection, and pieces by international artists whose work and practice resonates with the Collective. Using the Print Gallery imaginatively to show works that explore

the idea of shelter, traditional methods of display will be expanded and disrupted to create a vibrant, thought-provoking exhibition. Curator: Anne Hodge

See the ︎National Gallery website for more details.
 
Credit: Mary Swanzy (1882 – 1978), Self-Portrait with a Candle, ca 1940. ©The Artist’s Estate. Photo National Gallery of Ireland


 
Centre Culturel Irlandais, Open Studio
Paris Sept- Oct 2023



Sharon Murphy is a lens-based artist whose work investigates the boundaries between the seen/unseen, fictive/real, conscious/(sub)liminal. Drawing on a background in theatre and informed by concepts in magic realism and psychoanalysis, recurring motifs in her work include: theatre curtains; carousels; performative sites; embodied/disembodied staged spaces.  

During her residency she will develop a series of photographs based on Parisian Carousels and other sites of performance, using as a starting point Freud’s notion of the uncanny: that class of terrifying which leads back to something long known to us, once very familiar.

Open Studios at CCI 15th Sept 2023




Irish Arts Review Autumn 2023
Volume 40. Number 3



but here alone
Stephanie McBride looks at Sharon Murphy’s latest photographic series, which is informed by magic realism.

“The term ‘magic realism’, which originated in the field of art criticism in the 1930s, is a slippery one. It describes how dual realities, including magical elements, coexist to challeng an audience’s perceptions. In Angela Carter’s 1984 novel Nights at the Circus, for example, when a lavish setting is seen in the ‘cold light of early dawn’, readers learn that ‘the luxury… had been nothing but illusion, created by the candles of midnight’. Magic realism also informs ‘but here alone’, Dublin-based artist Sharon Murphy’s work in progress about the real and imaginary in Parisian carousels. The project arises from what she describes as a ‘longstanding interest in staged spaces and the performative in photography’.”

︎Irish Arts Review




‘Shelter’
National Gallery of  Ireland
Curator Anne Hodge

8 July–12 November 2023
‘Shelter’ opening July 8 at NGI (Prints and Drawing Gallery) with new individual and collaborative works by Shell/Ter Artists Collective alongside 16 works from the National Collection and works by five international contemporary artists, Tom Hunter, Gulsen K, Sharon Kelly, Daniel Pitin, Liliane Tomasko.





Individual Artist Awards 2023 
Dun-Laoghaire Rathdown + Carlow Co Co Arts Offices 
As a recent recipient of two awards from Carlow and Dun Laoghaire County Councils I am most grateful to the selectors and the Arts Office staff.



Shell/Ter Artist Collective Exhibition at National Gallery of Ireland
July–November 2023 
Shelter will highlight new artworks created by the five members of the Shell/Ter Artist Collective (S/TAC). Diana Copperwhite, Allyson Keehan, Niamh McGuinne, Sharon Murphy and Geraldine O’Neill work in a variety of formats: painting, sculpture, expanded print and photography. Their work will be complemented by a selection of objects from the Gallery’s collection, and pieces by international artists whose work and practice resonates with the Collective. Using the Print Gallery imaginatively to show works that explore the idea of shelter, traditional methods of display will be expanded and disrupted to create a vibrant, thought-provoking exhibition. Curator: Anne Hodge

See the ︎National Gallery website for more details.
 
Credit: Mary Swanzy (1882 – 1978), Self-Portrait with a Candle, ca 1940. ©The Artist’s Estate. Photo National Gallery of Ireland


© Sharon Murphy 2023