Artist Statement
Deborah Murphy
Life informs art not the other way around. I started out as an officer and saw an incredible amount of ugliness the first half of my career wandering around the penal institutions of New York City and Chicago. That has become a part of who I am. It is the thickness, a substance of my work and as much as I scrape it away, it still will show it’s head. I believe we are all made up of piles, layers, holes and tears. We seek to either fill or to eliminate one of these elements during the various stages we go through in our lives in an effort to fill that huge gaping hole that many artist feel within themselves. I represent
this process through the application and removal of medium with many different things that are not traditional artist tools. After each series, I throw away each tool and paint associated with the series as the never again repeat the process. I believe in that, I will never return to that moment in time and there is therefore always growth.