Megan Murphy is a conceptual artist based in Sun Valley, Idaho. Her work explores how our contemporary identities and culture are shaped by the subjective nature of recorded history, drawing inspiration from historical events and locations. Murphy's artistic practice is unique, combining film/video, digital art, painting, and text to create multifaceted pieces.

Her painting process is characterized by a cycle of addition and subtraction, both physically and metaphorically illuminating history through temporal reflection. This technique involves applying multiple layers of paint and text, then selectively removing elements to reveal the final image.

Murphy's installation "A Quiet Normal Life," exhibited at VOLTA NY 2011, featured four large paintings on low-iron glass and mirror. The source images were captured in an old-growth cedar forest near the Canadian border of Idaho. Each piece underwent an intricate process involving 20 to 40 layers of paint and text application, followed by careful sanding and removal. The result is a series of subtle, ethereal images with faint horizontal lines of text.

The textual elements in Murphy's work are drawn from various sources, including St. Thomas's writings on silence, Wallace Stevens' poems "Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour" and "A Quiet Normal Life," and excerpts from Kim Barnes' "In the Wilderness." These texts explore themes of presence, silence, and place.

Viewing Murphy's works creates a unique experience where the observer becomes part of the piece. The reflective surfaces of the paintings incorporate the viewer into the image, creating a gaze that seems to emerge from within the faded layers of history.