Megan Murphy's work still includes mirrored surfaces but she has expanded to including video stills and has lettered transfers as well as oil paint and transfer lettering. Erode I and 3 shown here are two of her more recent works. They are quite beautiful and below is some additional information about the work.
Each painting is a reflection of life on the Columbia Plateau. The water is a metaphor for time, always sculpting, flowing, and changing. I have thought about this space, one that is inherently beautiful while simultaneously deadly, for some time.
Each painting is made with video stills of moving water. The place of each video holds significance to me; each being a part of my history and love of the West. The stills are printed on dura-clear, mounted between silver and Plexiglas. Thin layers of oil paint and text are applied and then sanded away. The text is a combination of history, poetry, mythology, and family stories. What is left on the surface of the paintings, after the sanding away, are remnants of thought and actions, and their impressions left on the surface.
Erode I - V are made with video stills, digital text, and transfer lettering. The images are made on a digital platform with text and video. The image is then printed on vellum and numerous layers of transfer lettering are applied. Each layer of lettering incorporates different perspectives on water, history, stories, and the mythology of the West.
Evaporate I - III are objects that are made with mirror, glass, photographs of water, oil paint, and transfer lettering. The photograph, printed on a transparency, is mounted between the mirror and glass. Layers of oil paint, wax, and transfer lettering are applied across the surface.
The text applied with transfer lettering on each object are stories of lost cultures. The stories are those of the American West, people who shaped it's history, place, and identity in the twenty first century.
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