Art Brussels 2015, preview, John Murphy, The Deceptive Caress of a Giraffe

John Murphy

The Deceptive Caress of a Giraffe, 1993
Oil on canvas, 264 x 168 cm.

John Murphy

Sunk into Solitude, 2003
Envelop addressed to the artist, postmark and stamp, 86,5 x 74,5 x 3,5 cm.

John Murphy’s practice can be characterised through his use of existing material, such as reproductions and ready-mades.
Preoccupied with the relationship between vision, things and language whilst playing on the theme of similarity and difference, John Murphy’s art historical lineage can be traced through a specifically European Symbolist-based conceptual tradition descending from Mallarmé and Jarry through to Duchamp, Magritte and Broodthaers. The artist’s process of accumulating and arranging fragments of images and language is echoed in the viewer’s experience of the finished exhibition, where memories of things encountered shape the perception of other things yet to be seen.

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