Underwater New York

Waterway by Colette Murphy

“Home,” Acrylic & bleach on linen, 46″x60″, 2009

“Poaching,” Acrylic & bleach on linen, 36″x60″, 2009.

“Great Island III,” Acrylic and linen, 76″x76″, 2009

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Artist Statement

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This body of work required a search for something real and sustainable both in the physical construction of the work and the images I chose. The image of the shipwreck became a tangible object as a metaphor for our fragile state as a society. The appeal of these large, well constructed, man-made objects came from their use as war tanks. Built with a persuasion for life everlasting and yet against the force of nature they crumble and are swallowed. The catastrophe has a peaceful ending. With a desire to return to more meager means of survival or serenity I drown in the silence of the water’s vibration. The materials I choose are in their most unpolished form i.e. raw linen, dirty paint water and pencil, a direct contrast to the indulgence of our society. A return to landscape painting reveals an environment depleted by its previous inhabitants. The landscape has inherited our deserted presence. The vine of growth attempts to strangle the throne which once seated the king. Waterways swallowed the objects abandoned from their former days of glory. Decay is losing ground as the paint soaks the last breath of color from its falling days of grace. As an artist I am committed to recording the world as it is, unedited. It is not the event that I am interested in, rather the perception of the event. The details of the decline are glorious, the devastation sublime. The silence of language and the absence of people is the world revealed in my work. The aftermath is a desire for something more but the threatening future possesses me and the work that I make.

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About the Artist

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Colette Murphy is a painter who lives and works in Brooklyn. She holds an MFA from Hunter College. In 2009, she exhibited in “Personally Political—Contemporary Sensation,”at Art House Tacles, Berlin. She also showed with “PARLOUR.” No 6 “Watery Grave” in Staten Island. In 2008, she exhibited at Dean Project, LIC, APW Gallery, and Hunter College Times Square in New York City, as well as at the Scope Art Fair in London and in the Hamptons. In 2004, she exhibited at The Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Art Gallery at Hunter College. She has been published in New American Paintings, Feb-March Edition, 2009.  She was the recipient of the Estelle Levy Award in 2008 and the Tony Smith Award 2009.

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Tags: Colette Murphy, Hudson River, Shipwreck