INTERVIEW BY H. CANDEE

Photograph by Shannon Malone

BRUCE MURPHY

ARTIST

Interview by Harryet Candee Photographs supplied by the Artist

Tell us a little about your life starting from any point you want to share. My life really began when I moved from Tyler, Texas to New York City to attend Parson’s School of Design in 1970 where I received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting. I had finally arrived at a place that was about art and creativity. To wake up each day in New York City, was an exciting adventure. I have tried to live my life with that same intention of excitement and creativity ever since. I have always worked for myself doing something creative and innovative. I have done home renovations and furniture building for different publications from Mechanics Illustrated to Family Circle. My carved animal sculptures sold for ten years at Mabel’s on Madison Avenue, and they often still appear in antique stores and homes all over the Hudson Valley. In 1996 I became the co owner of China Rose, a popular Chinese restaurant in Rhinecliff, where I renovated the building and built the bar out of a pulpit I bought at an auction. I was tired of carving animals, and the sake margaritas were a real hit, so China Rose was my fortune cookie for over a decade. For the past 15 years, I have had the good fortune to just paint and take photographs.

As an artist you’ve been into sculpting, painting, and you’re a great photographer and gardener. Am I leaving out anything? Of all these venues, which one has taught you a great deal about art and life? I think photography and gardening have taught me the most about art and life. There is a certain permanence to a photograph, and a certain impermanence to a garden. My Asian inspired garden has been in process for twenty years, and my photography began only three years ago. The iPhone camera has taught me to see the garden in ways that I had never before experienced it. The play of light on the architecture of nature is never the same from minute to minute. Knowing that the flowers are going to die, inspires me to take more and more photos.

Past Looking Forward Bruce Murphy

With your time sculpting, painting, photographing, in what ways have they overlapped or grown into the next venue? I think that my paintings have overlapped and become a part of my photography and sculptures. I did a series of copper sculptures that I painted to go with a grouping of waterfall inspired paintings. Currently, I have been taking photographs that I then pair side by side with one of my paintings. Some photographs are of my flowers, and others are of sections of medieval paintings that I photograph, and then combine them with my paintings. It is a slow process that requires going through hundreds of photos to find ones that work together. The process merges my world, with another.

Spray paint, sheet metal, all kinds of paper this leads me to believe you like recycled and found materials to use when you want to make art. And it’s so far from boring for you. What got your interest in working in materials not considered traditional? I feel a big part of using nontraditional materials, has been a desire to experiment, and the other part was not being able to afford oil paints and canvases. My main medium today is spray paint on paper, mounted on board. Lowe’s is my art supply store. My great discovery this year was large rolls of photographic paper that I use to paint on. I am also partial to children’s poster boards. A dear artist friend of mine refers to my approach as “buy cheap, and sell high.” As an artist, you use whatever you can find and afford around you, to create what your work.

Have you ever explored off-the-beaten-path for materials to use at some point for making art? I have tried applying spray paint to almost anything that I could, to turn it into art. Hollow core doors, cement construction tubes, and FDS construction board. I made a nifty hat rack out of tree branches that hangs in our home’s foyer.

Do you consider to be spontaneous when creating art? What part of an art medium do you spend a lot of the time just getting the concept down, as apposed to what medium do you know that makes you move fast and free? Yes, I am spontaneous when creating art, and I am also completely in another world. My painting is totally about spontaneity. I find that if I try to think and paint at the same time, I am in trouble. I am applying, removing, and manipulating the painted surface using fast drying enamel paints as my medium. My work is about the painterly process that tries to balance control with accident, energy with freedom, in the mysterious creation of art.

The art that I am drawn to of yours happens to be the photos which includes old art combined with your art in one image. Clever to bring history in on this, what is the all about for you? In most of my paintings I try to incorporate the use of gold and silver metallic powders, which I combine with an exuberant selection of spray paint colors. During a visit to the Met, I began to notice the incredible painted fabrics and backgrounds of Medieval paintings. I took photos of them, with future color combinations in mind, not knowing that why would often work with sections of my own paintings. When these two work together to form one photo, it is always a surprise and a joy. I like the juxtaposition of my painting with someone else’s painting to make a photograph. Merging the two seems to make them both, timeless, and permanent. Continued on next page...

Dahlia and Pomegranate Bruce Murphy

Photo Studio — painting as backdrop

Aging Beautifully Bruce Murphy

Into The Mist 44” x 28” Bruce Murphy

What art have you seen and had an intense reaction? The paintings of Pat Steir and William Clutz fascinate and excite me. Pat Steir’s use of dripping paint patterns is so amazing in its spontaneity and scale. Her work is nothing short of brilliant simplicity. William Clutz painted the light and movement of New York City better than anyone else. Both painters are represented in most museums, and I am proud to say that I was a student of both of them.

Gardening is one of your interests. What has transpired between the garden and your camera? Do you enhance the photos or change them in any way? I was born an avid gardener. The German abstract painter and teacher Hans Hoffman taught that nature was the origin of art and that no matter how abstract a painting, the contrasts of color, form, and texture always convey the energy of nature. This speaks to me, and my work. Like nature, my camera is in the present tense, and it is always searching for the miraculous. I do often enhance my photos, not with photoshop, just with the iPhone photo edits. To me, this is the equivalent of painting. Photographs have always been enhanced in the dark room. Today, one can enhance on their phone. But, a bad photograph enhanced, is still a bad photograph. It all begins with a good photograph.

Carrie Haddad is proud to show your paintings and I can see why. Your paintings, abstract in style, have a lot of depth, color and dimension. What technique and materials do you use to create this body of work? And scale? I have been showing at the Carrie Haddad gallery in Hudson, New York for ten years. My gratitude goes out to Carrie and her wonderful staff. Their enthusiasm for my paintings sustains a relationship that continues to inspire me. The first three years that I was showing there, I was working on sheet metal frames using a combination of spray paint, chemically induced rust, and a gold metallic powder. Even with exhaust fans the rust process was finding its way onto any metal surface in my studio. So, I have switched materials several times from wood, to canvas, to paper, which is my current painting surface of choice. With paper, I have a choice of scale from small pieces,18 x 24 inches to 4 x 8 feet. My most recent works range from 40 x 40 inches to 28 x 44 inches. This scale works well with the painting process that I use. The combination of enamel spray paint and gold and silver metallic powders has been my choice of materials for the last 12 years. The metallic powders reflect light in different ways, depending upon which direction that you are looking at the painting. In some light, the gold and silver powders become colors. In a different light, they make the painting glow from inside the other paint colors, adding an unusual depth to the work. This use of gold can be seen in a more classical way in early Byzantine religious icon paintings.

If, and when, you have the opportunity to explore a new art form, visual or performance, what would you try? Why? What a great question. I have always wanted to combine my paintings and photos into a video Continued on next page....

Hudson River, Rhinebeck Bruce Murphy

form, combining music and videos of nature or city life to tell a visual story. I think that may be a learning curve that would require a more technically advanced artist than me. Though, one never knows what can happen at any age. I remain open to this happening, I would certainly welcome that collaboration.

Have you ever saved a piece of art from the trash and reworked it, finding the result to be a surprise after reworking it? Some of my most interesting work has been done on paintings that were destined for the trash. Working over a painting that you have absolutely no attachment to seems to often free up the creative process. I had an art teacher that made us lay our pristine white sheets of paper on the floor and walk on them. “Now,” he would say, “they are no longer so precious. There is now no pressure to think that you have to do something that is good.” I believe that an organic creation is a form of magic, if not, the outcome is seldom magical.

What did you have to stop doing when Covid came around, and what are you happily back at doing? During the pandemic I redesigned and built up my Japanese garden. Going nowhere caused me to paint and photograph so much more in places that I had never before explored. The worst part of the pandemic for me was not being able to go to museums and galleries in the city. I love my rural small town life, but the inspiration of New York City, Washington, or Chicago awakens parts of the creative spirit that is often subdued in the country. It always feels nice to bring it back and infuse that art back into my work.

Living in Rhinecliff sounds nice! Your description of the location on the river and the way the neighborhood is changing sounds like a sign of the times. Living in your home sounds interesting as well. Can you tell us about it? I bought my home in Rhinecliff in 1997. It is an Italianate style building that is a 30 x 30 x 30 cube with a beautiful cupola and a 30 foot front porch. When I bought it, the original cedar sided exterior from 1850 was covered by a layer of asbestos shingles. I could literally see the classical bones of the house. In 1850, Rhinecliff was a thriving river town with a major ferry stop to Kingston, and a train to New York City. My home at this time was the Union Hotel, and the owners lived on the street level, which is now my art studio. It was a slow renovation process. I think the garden creation slowed down my home renovation, but I am deeply happy with the results. To wake up and see the Hudson River and the Catskill Mountains out your windows is a wonderful gift. When I forget how lucky I am to be in this incredible place, my

Fade to Black and White Bruce Murphy

partner and fellow Texan and former Manhattanite, Shannon Malone, is there it remind me. Our home is our favorite place to be.

If I was to walk into your studio now, what would I be seeing you working on? ((Is your studio a mess or is it tidy? To walk into my studio is to enter a world of controlled chaos. It suffers from bad lighting and low ceilings, and hundreds of cans of spray paint.New work is on the limited wall space and it covers rolling tables. I keep telling myself that this year, I will invest in metal flat files. It is always a thrill and surprise to see my paintings in a large gallery setting. Where is that large light filled studio? I’ll continue looking…….

Can you bring up a favorite film of yours and why it is one you will always remember? My favorite film is THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, set in the forgotten plains of north Texas. I saw it in New York City at the 57th Street Cinema. I am sure that I left the cinema crying. The plot of being stuck in a place where you don’t belong, could have been my life had I not left Tyler, Texas for Manhattan. One of the great surprises of my life is that my partner, Shannon Malone, who lives and creates with me here for over a decade, was the child actress kidnapped by the preacher’s son at the end of the movie. Today, we two Texans share this life in the beautiful Hudson Valley, looking back and forward with such gratitude.

Bruce, do you have any viewpoint on where the art world is heading now that we are going through a Renaissance of sorts? The art world of today reminds me of the original Renaissance period with the wealthy Medici family and the Church during the 13th century. The Medici of today are a small group of gallery owners and the popes are the billionaires that pay astronomical prices for art as an investment. The average artist today has no real dealings with this rarefied world of art, and is lucky to be represented by a gallery. My renaissance is to go the studio each day, and create for myself and hope to make a living from it. Degas said, “Painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do.” Selling ones’ art is the same, it’s easy to sell your art when you don’t know how, and it’s difficult when you do. AS Einstein said, Creativity is contagious, pass it on.

Look for Bruce’s work at BruceMurphy17@gmail.com FB: BruceMurphy Instagram: BruceMurphyart

Thank you! H