The drawings of Nashville artist Marilyn Murphy will be on display at the Volunteer State Community College Art Gallery in October. The professor of Art emerita at Vanderbilt University has been shown in 390 exhibitions nationally and abroad.
“My drawings typically include one or two figures involved in an improbable action or working at some curious task,” Murphy said. “While occasionally my art has a political element, many of the pieces in this series comment upon the act of seeing, the creative process or some aspect of human experience.”
“There is a particular logic inherent in Murphy’s conjunction, one based on visual punning and the slightly too bright, almost halated quality of her tonalities,” said Peter Frank, a Los Angeles curator. “If this is dreaming, it is lucid dreaming, a knowing exploitation of the dream state by Murphy to provide her and us, with images and sensations of improbable freedom and thrilling or hilarious juxtaposition.”
Murphy has had a mid-career survey at the Frist Center in Nashville and a two-person exhibition at the Huntsville Museum of Art. Her work is in many public and private collections including the Huntsville Museum of Art, the Boston Museum School, and the Prudential and Bridgestone Collections.
The Vol State show runs from September 30 until October 31. There will be a reception for the artist at the Gallery on October 19 from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. The exhibit is free and open to the public. The Vol State Art Gallery is located on the first floor of the Steinhauer-Rogan-Black (SRB) Humanities Building on the Gallatin campus at 1480 Nashville Pike. Gallery hours are Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. For more information call 615-230-3202.
Pictured: Marilyn Murphy, Civic Still Life Control.
