Illuminations, 2008

Ochi, 2008 | Catalog Text by Linda Allen

Art is always the final generalization.  It must provide the implications of infinity to any situation.  And if our own environment is too diverse to allow a philosophical unity, it must find some symbol to express at least the desire for one.

                                                                                             Mark Rothko

For those coming to Megan Murphy’s holistic paintings for the first time, the seemingly uninflected fields of color, though luminous and beautiful, are undoubtedly perplexing.  Are there no images?  What is the meaning of surfaces that are reflective and seemingly impenetrable?   Such questions invite, even compel, visitors to contemplate artworks in which images and text, barely discernible, are reflected outward through depths of color.  Without frames or borders, Megan Murphy’s paintings, like Rothko’s, refer to infinity and its inherent problem of finding a physical symbol for an ineffable construct.

An intellectually curious and deeply spiritual person, Megan Murphy’s artistic vision is inspired by her extensive reading in the history of theological inquiry, especially as it applies to the many variations of human activity.  She holds two degrees, a bachelor’s degree in art and a master’s degree in theology based on her study of medieval aesthetics.  Her academic background and subsequent research have produced a conceptual depth in her art that is informed by a confluence of religion, philosophy, history, and aesthetic tradition. Each painting, or group of paintings, however, is more narrowly focused, and explores a particular thematic context.  The eight panels of Threshold, for instance, are embedded with references to an infamous nineteenth century episode that happened in eastern Washington when Yakima tribal leaders, expecting to surrender to the U.S. army, were instead murdered, hung from trees along a creek that came to be known as Hangman’s Creek.

As this huge painting demonstrates, Megan’s materials and process serve the painting’s thematic references.  Her process is based on a philosophy of negation and its connection to reductive painting.  After silk-screening each of forty to fifty layers of translucent color onto sheets of silver-leafed glass or mirrors, she sands, brushes, and polishes it, thereby creating very thin layers that permit the mirrored backing to reflect light.  The light illuminates the faint images and text buried within the layers, and also, reflects the viewer.  As a result, the paintings, like Threshold, become metaphors for self-reflection in a larger context of history or philosophy. 

In creating the six paintings making up the group titled “Crossing,” Megan used texts taken from writings by Sylvia Plath, Cormac McCarthy, Georges Didi Huberman, Avishai Margalit, Norman McLean, and the Bible’s book of Exodus.  All pertain to an experience of crossing, perhaps that of immigrating or moving, and its impact upon the writer’s memory.  Bands of space left between texts reveal the faint image of Vija Celmins’ Ocean Surface, suggesting the vastness involved in all crossings, whether physical or mental.  The paintings’ mirrored surfaces produce multiple reflections, causing overlapping of text and images as well as that of the viewer who again is brought into the paintings’ philosophical but mute discussions.

The paintings and drawings making up most recent series, “Shock and Awe” of 2004, are based on the war in Iraq as seen on the internet and in the press.  Not only the conflicting stories but also the videos and photos that were prohibited by the military brought about the realization that as civilians far removed from the action we are protected from the war’s horror.  The question of whether we should have the option of seeing images of such atrocities as beheadings is the subject of this body of work. 

In addition to the paintings, three drawings, Assisi  I, II, and III, titled for the place where the Decalogue for Peace was written, are included.  They are made up of multiple layers of newspaper articles, handwritten, and then erased.  The text was written right side up and upside down, erased and re-written many times over.  The thin lines between the lines of text, even though erased, are meant to bring order to the plethora of information.

By obscuring inner texts and images, Megan’s purpose is not simply to create mystery.  Rather, her interest lies in concretizing philosophical inquiries pertaining to human motivations.  The deeply embedded words and images, more felt than seen, are, nevertheless, clues to each work’s subject, clues that are reinforced by written references to specific historical events and literature.   Megan’s art is essentially metaphysical.  It symbolizes that place within ourselves, which some might call the soul, where the physical world transmutes into the spiritual.