SU Z Y MU RP HY I Won't Look Away
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SU Z Y M U RP H Y I Won't Look Away 15th November – 20th December 2019
Lyndsey Ingram 20 Bourdon Street, London W1K 3PL T. +4 4
(0)20 7629 8849
E. info@lyndseyingram.com W. lyndseyingram.com
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"There’s something about being the stranger, about being the outsider, being a traveller in a country that you love but don’t belong to. You see things with a clear eye" – Suzy Murphy
FOREWORD Lyndsey Ingram
We are delighted to have the opportu-
communicate much more than a sense
nity to show this new body of work by
of place. Having lived with this work
London artist Suzy Murphy.
for some time now, I have come to understand that part of what makes
Our exhibition includes all aspects
Suzy’s landscapes so compelling is the
of Suzy’s recent output – paintings
resonant, emotional energy they emit,
ranging in scale from monumental
inviting us to look deeper.
to diminutive, works on paper, and a selection of small sculptures. Although
I would like to thank Rachel Campbell-
she is perhaps best known for her
Johnston, for her wonderfully insight-
paintings, Suzy has a very active
ful essay, perfectly capturing Suzy
printing practice – using printmaking
and her inspiring story. I would also
in the service of her monoprints, that
like to thank Mark Jenkins at K2 Screen,
she then vigorously over paints. We
for making the limited edition screen-
have also included a group of small,
print which accompanies the deluxe
seductive sculptures, which are being
edition of the exhibition catalogue.
shown here for the first time. We hope
And lastly, this show would never have
that by including such a broad range
been possible without Nigel Mead,
of mediums, this exhibition will give a
who had the foresight and sensitivity
complete overview of this exceptional
to introduce us to Suzy and her work.
artist and her working practice.
I am extremely grateful to him for making this very meaningful conn-
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Although at first sight these images
ection, which has resulted in not only
appear to be landscapes, they are
this wonderful show but also, a won-
rendered with such deep feeling as to
derful friendship.
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SUZY MURPHY Rachel Campbell-Johnston Art Critic, The Times
A single bare branch embraces the
ances belie. She was born out of
emptiness. A solitary teepee is pitched
wedlock. She has never met her father.
on a backdrop of gold. The boat is
Her mother was one of eight children
no more than a speck beneath sky-
brought up in London's East End.
scraping mountains. Lonely roads loop
And, in those days, it was still Don
the vastness of deserted landscapes.
McCullin's East End, Murphy says: a
These images are often so pared down
world of slums and sweat shops and
that you start to think they are simple.
bombed out air raid shelters. For the
You might begin to imagine it took only
first five years of her life, she lived with
moments to swirl that paint about.
her grandmother, brought up amid
But don't be deceived. Simplicity, as
uncles and aunts not much older than
Leonardo so famously put it, is the
her. Then her mother married and the
ultimate sophistication. And into
family emigrated to Calgary, full of
the time that it took to create these
dreams for their future.
images, the experiences of an entire life have been poured.
Imagine how the Canadian wilds must have felt to a five-year-old girl: at once
“Everything begins for me in my
thrilled by the open expanses around
childhood,” says Suzy Murphy. “You
her and homesick for her old familiar
spend your whole life just dealing with
brick-built world. That will give you an
the first ten years.” And, Murphy's life
idea of the strength of the vision that
story – much like her paintings – is
flooded her wide-eyed stare. “It felt so
possessed of a depth, intensity and
huge” she tells me. “It felt so power-
unexpectedness that first appear-
ful.” And, having imbibed something
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of her mother's Irish Catholic religion
she describes as “an extraordinary
(she believed in Jesus, she tells me,
thing”. She scrabbled together the
but because she had been brought
money to send her daughter to private
up amid East End sweat shops, she
school. The girl who had found outer
always imagined him to be a Jewish
freedom in the Canadian wilds, now
tailor, stooped over his Singer, sewing
began to discover an inner freedom
suits for the dead), all that she saw was
too. This was the freedom to be herself.
pervaded by her sense of the spiritual. “I always think of that landscape as
Murphy had always loved drawing.
God's land,” she tells me. Her abstract
Now it was recognised that she was
expanses are imbued with a numinous
really good. In the holidays, sent back
aura. Light shines through the colour,
to her grandmother, she would be
as if from some infinite beyond.
given a bit of money (to buy lunch of pie and mash) and left free to
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The Canadian experiment did not last
roam. “We ran wild on the buses,” she
long. She was not yet eight when the
remembers. Often she would end up at
family returned to London; for a while
Trafalgar Square. That's how she found
to the East End, and then to Clapham
the National Gallery. “I would stand
where they lived above the sweet shop
awestruck in front of Rembrandt,” she
that they had bought. (That too left
says, unpinning a postcard of one of
a legacy, apparently: “I've got a filling
his portraits (Margaretha de Geer)
in every single tooth; they are literally
from her studio wall. “I couldn't believe
crumbling as I speak,” Murphy laughs).
the way that a painter had captured a
It was then that her mother did what
soul. I was amazed that a picture could
transport me. And I loved the way that
own to bring up, she managed to stick
a Rembrandt could feel almost like a
to her course.
still from a film: like a moment frozen in time.”
Each of her paintings begins in a diary: a moleskin which she slips into
Murphy also found William Blake.
her pocket when she goes for a hike.
She bought a pamphlet of his poems.
This show draws from diaries XXIII,
His images entranced her. They had
XXIV and XXV; filled during trips to
a symbolic clarity which entered her
Tennessee, Colorado and California
childish imagination unfiltered.
over the last two years. When something catches her eye she sits down
It took some time for Murphy to find
and draws. “Drawing is very impor-
her feet as a painter. “If you don't have
tant,” she says; “you can only under-
a family or a tutor to guide you, you
stand colour if you understand black
are in a world that you don't under-
and white. You have to understand
stand.” She studied art for a spell at
light and dark to sculpt an image.”
St Martin's, she embarked on an MA
Serried ranks of saplings are captured
in existential psychotherapy. All
in simple parallel strokes. Telegraph
that did, she says, was reinforce her
lines swoop across double pages.
conviction that everything she needed
Rhythms and patterns and structures
to know could be found in the painting
are mapped. They are the heartbeat
studio. In the end it was the security of
of her pictures. It is no coincidence
marriage that put her firmly on track.
that she always listens to music – any
Even with three toddler sons of her
music with a strong beat – when she
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works. Other drawings – the silhou-
for trees. “I love them; they seem so
ettes of pine forests against jagged
strong and so safe.” The backdrop is
mountain horizons, a farm truck left
that colour, because she was travelling
parked in a woodland clearing – speak
in October. Everything around her was
rather of mood.
glowing with autumnal gold. But the title of the painting alludes to a constant
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When something particularly strikes
wariness which, she acknowledges, is
her, she will go further, working in oil
part of her nature. “I am always on the
paint. This will serve as an aide mem-
look-out for danger, because so many
oire. Back in her studio, she “fiddles
dangerous things have happened to
around with it”. And then, if it really
me in my life.” In her studio – “her safe
resonates, she starts to build it up. But
place” as she describes it – she works
it has to resonate, she insists. “I don't
to distil all this information into a single
think of myself as a landscape painter.
image: “an image of exactly what it
These works are all about me, they are
meant to be me to be there, at that
about my emotions…” she adds.
moment in time.”
Take her painting: I Should Not Sleep.
In a way Murphy is returning to what she
The black boughs of a tree arch protec-
first discovered in Rembrandt: the way
tively over a teepee. The background
he could still the drama of a moment.
is an abstract expanse of yellow-gold.
She is drawing on that rich depth of
This painting, she tells me, draws on
symbolism which she found in Blake.
her childhood memories of teepees
Flipping through her diary she finds a
in Canada. It speaks of her feeling
scribbled note: “A symbol by definition
participates in that to which it points,
fundamentally true that, tapping into
unlike a sign, which points by arbitrary
a shared human consciousness, it
convention. So it is with painting. I am in
strikes a universal chord. The result
it – and both in the object, and the act of
is an image that seems a bit like a
painting the object otherwise it's just an
memory: constantly present yet cur-
image, a sign, an illustration, and I'm not
iously unreachable. Her work feels so
interested in that.”
familiar, yet you can't put your finger on it. All you know is that what might
These lessons and countless others
have been ordinary, instead seems
have been imbibed. They have diss-
strange and mysterious and resonant.
olved into a matrix of memories.
“I want each painting to work like a
Now, it is her own individual vision
portal”, she tells me. She creates not
that she must crystallise. “There are
surfaces but spaces through which we,
so many elements to painting,” she
as spectators, can slip. It's as easily
says. “Narrative, atmosphere, scale,
simple – and as magically complex –
the language of the paint must all be
as that.
taken into account. But as I've got older, I have concentrated more and more on making the message clearer and clearer.” Murphy sets out to distil the world down to its visual essence. She is out to capture something that feels so
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"She creates not surfaces but spaces through which we, as spectators, can slip. It's as easily simple – and as magically complex – as that." – Rachel Campbell-Johnston
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Weeping, oil on linen, 2019. 122 × 92 cm
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Burning Through Darkness, oil on board, 2019. 25 Ă— 20 cm
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I Should Not Sleep (Study), oil on board, 2019. 25 × 20 cm
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If Snow Had Breath, oil on board, 2019. 61 × 61 cm
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Truth, from the series A Girls Progress, bronze, 2019. Edition of 6, with 2 artist's proofs. H: 31 cm
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Behind The Trees, oil on board, 2019. 25 × 20 cm
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Pausing I Looked, oil on board, 2019. 25 × 20 cm
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I Should Not Sleep I, oil on linen, 2019. 153 × 122 cm
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On the Road to Telluride, oil on board, 2019. 20 × 25 cm
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Dunton's Green, oil on board, 2019. 25 × 20 cm
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Out of the Light, monoprint with hand-painting in oil, 2019. 63 Ă— 50 cm
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Tennessee Daze (Study), oil on board, 2019. 25 × 20 cm
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The Weight of Blue, oil on board, 2019. 25 × 20 cm
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Through The Trees, oil on linen, 2019. 183 × 153 cm
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Passion, from the series A Girls Progress, clay, 2019. Edition of 6, with 2 artist's proofs. H: 23 cm
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Wish I Was Here, oil on board, 2019. 20 × 25 cm
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The Road West, oil on board, 2019. 20 × 25 cm
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Mirror Lake, monoprint with hand-painting in oil, 2019. 63 Ă— 50 cm
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Green Air, oil on linen, 2019. 153 × 122 cm
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To See What I Could Find, oil on board, 2019. 20 × 25 cm
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The Heat Down Here, oil on board, 2019. 25 × 20 cm
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When Night Comes, oil on board, 2019. 61 × 61 cm
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Standing in the Field II, monoprint with hand-painting in oil, 2019. 63 Ă— 50 cm
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Burning Gold II, monoprint with hand-painting in oil, 2019. 63 Ă— 50 cm
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Summers Heat, oil on linen, 2019. 122 × 92 cm
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Toby Was A Girl, bronze, 2019. Edition of 6, with 2 artist's proofs. H: 7 cm
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When Dark Clouds Free (Study), oil on board, 2019. 25 × 20 cm
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Here We Are, oil on board, 2019. 25 × 20 cm
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Tennessee Daze, oil on linen, 2019. 122 × 92 cm
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A Million Atoms of Blue (Study), oil on board, 2019. 20 × 25 cm
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As Blue Rises, oil on board, 2019. 20 × 25 cm
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When Dark Clouds Free, oil on linen, 2019. 152 × 122 cm
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The Weight of Blue, monoprint with hand-painting in oil, 2019. 63 Ă— 50 cm
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The Heat Down Here, monoprint with hand-painting in oil, 2019. 63 Ă— 50 cm
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I Should Not Sleep II, oil on board, 2019. 61 × 61 cm
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Solitude, from the series A Girls Progress, bronze, 2019. Edition of 6, with 2 artist's proofs. H: 20 cm
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Weeping, oil on board, 2019. 25 × 20 cm
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The Dark Sky Is Polished, oil on board, 2019. 25 × 20 cm
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As The Blue Waves Rise, oil on linen, 2019. 122 × 82 cm
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Lines Lay On The Horizon, oil on board, 2019. 20 × 25 cm
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Upon The Horizon, oil on board, 2019. 20 × 25 cm
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Mini Mart Blue, monoprint with hand-painting in oil, 2019. 63 Ă— 50 cm
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Dolores, oil on board, 2019. 25 × 20 cm
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California's Green, oil on board, 2019. 25 × 20 cm
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A Million Atoms of Blue, oil on linen, 2019. 92 × 122 cm
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Nights Blue, oil on board, 2019. 20 × 25 cm
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Deep Silence, oil on board, 2019. 25 × 20 cm
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Blistering Sun, oil on board, 2019. 25 × 20 cm
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Tennessee, oil on board, 2019. 25 × 20 cm
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Hetchy Blue, oil on linen, 2019. 122 × 92 cm
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For Years and Years II, monoprint with hand-painting in oil, 2019. 63 Ă— 50 cm
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Until I Am Undone, monoprint with hand-painting in oil, 2019. 63 Ă— 50 cm
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BIOGRAPHY
The stillness of the snow covered open
of being alone was the creative cat-
landscapes, the mysterious beam of
alyst for the tranquillity and magical
a car’s headlamp on a deserted road
realism that informs her work.
and dense moonlit forests are recurrent themes within Suzy Murphy’s
Suzy Murphy’s love of North America
oeuvre. These seminal images are not
has remained, and for several years
merely visual representations of the
has travelled extensively on road trips
landscapes that she observes; they
from the monumental landscapes
are imbued with a deep emotional
of the Rocky Mountains of Western
dialogue and an underlying political
Canada to the sprawling townships
commentary that communicates
and prairies of the Western United
profoundly with the viewer within an
States. Her diarised sketches speak
autobiographical context and through
of this time and her paintings reflect
self-portraiture rather than the genre
it. This narrative of her life is the sub-
of landscape painting.
conscious thread that runs throughout her work and continues to present
Born in London's East End in 1964 to
itself in her paintings.
a teenage mother and raised by Irish grandparents, Suzy Murphy moved
Suzy Murphy is an alumna of St Martin’s
to Alberta, Canada aged five. From
School of Art, London in 1982. Her work
occupying a small tenement apart-
is held in many important public and
ment with her large Irish family to
private collections worldwide.
emigrating with her mother to the vast open landscapes of North America,
Suzy Murphy continues to live and
the subsequent emotional shift
work in London, England.
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EXHIBITIONS
2019
I Won't Look Away,
2014-5 What I Thought I Saw,
Lyndsey Ingram, London London Original Print Fair,
Mead Carney, London 2014
Lyndsey Ingram, London 2018
E/AB Fair, Lyndsey Ingram, New York London Original Print Fair, Lyndsey Ingram, London 21st Century Women, Unit London
2017
When I Close My Eyes, Masters and Contemporary, London
2016
National Open Art, London, (Landscape Award) Pallant House, Chichester, (NOA Landscape Award)
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Threadneedle Prize, Mall Gallery, London
2010
Threadneedle Prize, Mall Gallery, London
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"I guess in the paintings you are always setting off, or in transit, but you never arrive, and that can leave you with an uncomfortable feeling. And I want the viewer to go on this emotional journey with me.... but I don't know where it ends." – Suzy Murphy
Published by Lyndsey Ingram Designed by Lucy Harbut Printed by Dayfold Image credits: p.2 Through The Trees, 2019 (detail) p.5 As The Blue Waves Rise, 2019 (detail) p.6 Nights Blue, 2019 (detail) p.13 On the Road to Telluride, 2019 (detail) p.86 Studio portrait by Emma Hardy p.89 Studio photo by Lucy Emms p.90 When Dark Clouds Free, 2019 (detail) 100 deluxe copies of this catalogue were printed, and include an original screenprint by Suzy Murphy. Printed with thanks by Mark Jenkins at K2 Screen, London. Artwork photography by Hugh Kelly All images © 2019 Suzy Murphy
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