About the artwork:
This series of paintings is an exploration of scenes observed by the artist, primarily in his home city of Philadelphia, as well as at sites encountered during his travels. The works are begun on site and elaborated in the studio. Through this process, the spontaneity and excitement of working in the landscape merge with the slow, contemplative space of memory and imagination. Each painting grounds the viewer in a site-specific sense of atmosphere while offering imaginative departures through painterly expression. The paintings depict commonplace subjects but approach them in a way that frees them from their everyday significance, allowing the viewer to perceive formal and mythical possibilities in each.
About the artist:
Henry Murphy paints from direct observation, drawing on principles from the classical landscape painting tradition, folk art, and an idealized notion of pre-photographic thinking. The act of observational painting- done as a combination of painting and drawing on site- serves as a jumping-off point for contemplations of nature and the consideration of places and their histories. This effort to paint in the landscape is central to the content and choices in Murphy’s work and a way of engaging with the local world. When his paintings diverge from the observational mode, they remain a means of interacting through seeing.
Henry Murphy, born, 1995 New York, NY, is an oil painter, living and working in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Henry earned both a BFA and a painting certificate from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts where he was awarded a Von Hess Memorial Travel Scholarship.
Specs:
This painting was created during a week in September spent on the beach. It depicts the bluffs of Block Island, Rhode Island, a recurring subject in the artist’s work, and is part of a growing collection of landscape sketches made on the shore. Executed on wood, the painting incorporates sand and presents the profile of a bluff noticeably altered since the previous year. The site is one the artist has observed at every stage of life during family trips. At the painting’s center, a small boy stands on the layered rocks. Sand is integrated into the oil paint both intentionally and by chance, adding texture and a sense of immediacy to the work.More
- Unframed
- Signed
3:00 PM, Mar 10, 2026.
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