Margaret Murphy “Nature/Culture” – Aug. 26 – Oct. 7, 2021

Opening Reception – We are pleased to return to in-person events (masks required indoors):

Friday, September 10, 5-7pm
Barry Gallery, Reinsch Library Building, MU Main Campus (near 26th St. entrance)
All are welcome! 

Barry Gallery is proud to present “Nature/Culture” by Baltimore artist and educator Margaret Murphy. The exhibition includes oil paintings, as well as acrylic and watercolor paintings incorporating printmaking and collage.

Murphy writes, “My oil on paper flower paintings are compositions based on familiar and shared cultural artifacts. Vowing to paint one a week during the impeachment trial of Donald Trump, I purchased flowers at Trader Joe’s and other grocery stores, and vases at Ikea, West Elm, and second hand stores. These artifacts are steeped in cultural ideas of beauty, class, and domestic space through their commercial accessibility and price point; some are mass produced and inexpensive while others are unique or ‘designer.’ My figurative mixed media work explores the construction of gender through everyday objects and artifacts. The discussion of power and class, closely related to gender, plays an important role in my work as well. In my paintings of clothing, I examine the print, color, form, and gender of the clothes to invite a dialogue about cultural norms and gender tropes.”

Sample images from the in-person exhibition:

Margaret Murphy is currently Director of the Center for Visual Arts at Johns Hopkins University. She holds an MFA from Rutgers University Mason Gross School of the Arts and an undergraduate degree with Honors from Towson University. She has received grants from the Pollock Krasner Foundation, Pat Hearn and Colin de Land Foundation, New Jersey State Arts Council, Rutgers University Brodsky Center, Puffin Foundation, Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, and Change Inc. Murphy has completed numerous artist residencies, including those of MacDowell Colony, Newark Museum, Vermont Studio Center, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, and Cooper Union. Her solo and group exhibitions include museums, art centers, and galleries. Her work is featured in the collections of Deutsche Bank, Hudson County Community College Foundation, Jersey City Museum, The Brodsky Center at Rutgers University, and Central Michigan University, and has been reviewed in The New York Times, The Star Ledger, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Jersey Journal, and on “State of the Art,” a PBS program featuring New Jersey artists. From 2005–2008, she directed and curated The Garage, a grass roots initiative that brought local and tri-state artists to her gallery space in Jersey City. Murphy’s teaching career has taken her all over the country as an artist in residence, instructor, and visiting critic. In her current role at Johns Hopkins University, she teaches painting and drawing in addition to directing the Center for Visual Arts.