Dec 2005
Margaret Murphy
Jersey City, NJ
www.margaret-murphy.com
mmurphy399@earthlink.net
ARTIST STATEMENT
I obtained an MFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University in 1992. Since that time, I have received numerous awards and grants including a Change, Inc. grant, MacDowell Colony Residency and travel award, and two project grants from the city of Chicago. My work has been featured in many group shows in New Jersey, New York and Chicago. Among these shows are CONSUMER REPORTS at the Tomasulo Gallery of Union County College that I also curated. In 2003, my work was included in the $99 Bargain Store Show at Cynthia Broan Gallery as well as the New Jersey Arts Annual at the Morris Museum. In 2002, I was featured in SKIN DEEP at The Islip Museum in NY. I have also exhibited at The Newark Museum, the Montclair Museum, Aljira Center for Contemporary Art, Ramapo College, and Pierogi2000 in Brooklyn. In 1999 I was a participant in Aljira Center for Contemporary Arts EMERGE 2000 program. In January 2001 I was an Artist in Residence at the Newark Museum. I have served on committees and boards of the Jersey City Museum and Pro Arts. Reviews of my work have appeared in the New York Times, The Star Ledger, and numerous New Jersey and Long Island newspapers. I was featured on State of the Art, WNJN.For the past two years, I have been making paintings based on knick - knacks. I obtain these source objects specifically at the urban 99-cent emporiums. The statuettes that I am most interested in currently depict women or girls as debutantes, ballerinas, or figures in conventional clothing. I am interested in scrutinizing these household objects of veneration and visual pleasure and considering the statuettes' social function and appeal. My paintings question Walter Benjamin's assertion that mass reproduction of an image drains its aura. Both conceptually satirical and technically reverential, my representation of these everyday icons re-presents them to again charge them with presence.
