The Paintings of T.C. Murphy

Foreword

It is often only with the advantage of hindsight that we are ready to acknowledge what has been hidden in plain view for the longest time. Assembling the paintings of T.C. Murphy for the present catalog has afforded the opportunity to trace the development over the course of a quarter century of a bold artistic sensibility. The paintings shown here bear eloquent witness to an artist who has taken to heart Shakespeare's maxim: this above all: to thine own self be true. Seeing the work, one cannot avoid being struck by the 'otherness' of the artist's vision. In a world where originality and individuality are alleged to be held in highest esteem, one might expect to find an artist of Murphy's singular vision warmly embraced by mainstream culture. Alas, the reality is otherwise. The paintings of T.C. Murphy may bear the imprint of an authentic hand, but until now they have yet to be acknowledged for it. It is hoped the present collection will address the oversight and hasten the inclusion of the artist's name in the pantheon of great painters.

T.C. Murphy was christened Thomas Christopher in Dublin in 1953. His father, an employee of the Guinness Brewing Company, provided for his family in the old Dublin suburb of Walkinstown. Here Murphy grew up in the rough and tumble of a working class neighborhood. Ireland in the period of the 1950's was still a fledgling state having gained its independence a mere three decades earlier. Economically the country struggled to assert itself, but in spite of efforts to improve its lot, it still ranked amongst the poorest states of Europe. By the time Murphy reached secondary school age, living standards had improved, but Ireland had yet to provide free education for its children beyond primary school level. Nevertheless, Murphy attended Drimnagh Castle Secondary School run by a religious order of Christian Brothers. His formal education, however, ended at the age of sixteen when he was apprenticed as a jeweler with Irish Diamond Jewelers. Some four years later and barely out of his teens, he left home to travel to Denmark where he found employment as a cutler. Later he worked as a forester and steel worker. It was during his time in Denmark that the young emigre began to paint. Eventually he went to stay at the commune of Christiania, a counter-culture, alternative life-style colony in Copenhagen where art became the focus of his life's work. After fifteen years spent on the European mainland, the artist hearing the call of his Celtic roots, turned for home in 1988.

In many regards the country that greeted him upon his return appeared little altered from the one whose shores he had departed years earlier. An island insularity still held sway. The artistic temperament of the populace still inclined towards old world, traditional values. Save for a few exceptions, most notably in the person of Hugh Charlton of the Apollo Gallery in Dublin and a small group of admirers and supporters, the experimental paintings of T.C. Murphy were either summarily dismissed or else entirely ignored. The experience served to maroon the artist on the fringes of the social and artistic establishment where he has continued to hover until the present day.

In art as in life, Murphy has always pioneered new horizons. He employs a unique pictorial vocabulary in order to paint at the deepest level of experience. His is a narrative of experimental journeying in search of the tools of authentic expression. Yoga meditation informs his work as does his interest in alternative ways of apprehending reality. His art has in some sense followed a circular line, beginning with primitivism, and advancing through figuratism and geometricism before returning, at least in the short term, to primitivism. His work is rooted in the CoBrA school of European art, a movement that gained traction in Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam in the post-war era, and which formed a confluence between surrealism and German Expressionism with elements of abstract expressionism incorporated into it. The movement sought to make sense out of the destruction wrought by war and the wounds suffered in its aftermath. Only a new art that could plumb the depths of madness would satisfy the artists who worked at its epicenter. Such intensity of purpose held a ready attraction for Murphy whose early experience provided ample material for his own personal odyssey. Conventional means would never let him penetrate the surface of that experience. Only a fresh approach to art could accomplish that.

Though the manner of his art may be influenced by the CoBrA school, many of Murphy's earliest paintings remind one of the disappeared, native Indian cultures of Central and South America. The line between symbolism and decoration is often blurred in this period. Later, his memories of the forests and meadows of Denmark would manifest in his work. In Ireland, the megaliths of the land would eventually summon him to the ancient burial chamber at Newgrange. Many of his paintings reflect this mystical, hallowed ground of his primeval forebears. Here, it is not mere depiction in which the artist indulges; rather it is a summoning of distant voices into the present through the medium of intuitive memory. It is not the bell that Murphy paints, but its vibration.

Little else matters in the work of an artist if it lacks inventiveness. After many years, the techniques Murphy employs in the service of his craft have lent him a signature style. His chosen medium is acrylic, and he favors paper over canvas as a surface on which to paint. He is a colorist of the boldest stripe, laying down broad swathes of red, orange, yellow, green and blue, and overlaying them with decorative and symbolic features. Circles, spirals, pyramids, coils, waves, orbs are just some of the symbols, shapes and forms he employs in the communication of his personal vision. It's a visual language that eloquently addresses us as it draws us into a dialogue with the artist.

It is a mark of integrity in a painter that he stands by his own vision. Each of us has the possibility to speak uniquely and authentically to our generation if only we can forego the temptation to please our peers at any price. The paintings of T.C. Murphy are made not for praise but in praise. It is a distinction for which the artist has paid dearly.

Like many artists before him, materialism counts for little with Murphy. He is a man of quiet generosity who shares freely the fruits of his labor, but he is also a person of strong physical appetites, and the awareness of the need to hold these in check, to supplant chaos with the power of his own will, to find a balance between his inner and outer worlds, lends a deep spirituality to his journey. More than many, he is aware of the frailties of the human condition. In conversation he is disarmingly honest and forthright, concelaing nothing that might be used to cast him in an unfavorable light. Neither is he overly swayed by notions of success or failure. Largely he paints in the moment, seldom losing sight of the importance of enjoying the physical, tactile nature of mixing and applying paint to paper. Sometimes he jubilates before the miracle of his own doing, as a child might before an enormous sand castle he has spent the afternoon fashioning with bucket and spade. Though occasionally a brooding shadow darkens the work, the natural inclination of the artist is towards light.

Art is a fragile thing, and the means by which it comes through to us, all the more so. Artists navigate through unchartered territory, often without bearings and nearly always to an end that does not exist when they set out for it. Art has so many chances along the way of not becoming, that one might be freely persuaded to rejoice when one does come upon it. Such might be our response in the presence of the paintings of Thomas Christopher Murphy, for when the artist set out on his journey, it was with the slimmest of chances that he would ever find his way.

From the Foreword to The Paintings of T.C. Murphy