We recently connected with Katie Murphy and have shared our conversation below.

Katie, appreciate you joining us today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

When I was in my early thirties with three small children at home and an abandoned first career, I found myself hit heavily with the realization that this is my only life to live. I found that the part of my life I felt most sad about not exploring was my artistic practice. I had studied studio art in undergrad for one year before changing my major to something that felt more practical to me at the time, something that had a clear path. After a move across the country for my partner’s career I found myself nestled in a university town in East Tennessee. I had previously discovered some of my old drawings at my mom’s house and wept with ache over the promise that they showed and the utter desire within myself to return to the study and practice of studio art. I found the courage to make an appointment with the chair of the art department at the time and decided to take one class that following fall semester. One class led to another and after five years of part time enrollment I finished with my Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art degree with honors from East Tennessee State University. I am currently a candidate in a Master of Fine Arts program in Studio Art at Maryland Institute College of Art. I have kept up a consistent and thriving studio practice over the last ten years and don’t regret anything that has lead me here. I feel so thankful towards my younger self who had the courage to want, to take a step and a risk towards my deepest dreams.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am primarily a painter. I work with ideas around bodies and spaces. I am often thinking with ideas of propriety and containment versus ideas of wildness and openness. I think about domestic spaces and spaces for nature and how women’s bodies specifically are allowed to navigate through each. I question and consider who has dictated the existence of these bodies. When I consider the places bodies get to inhabit and how they are allowed to move throughout that space, I find myself wanting to create a new type of space. I am interested in desire and want as an impetus towards movement, empowerment and change.

I most often am working large scale and in vivid color. My work exists in the simultaneous worlds of representation and abstraction and begins with the form of a figure. I work from my collection of personal photos that ground my work in relationship and specificity. I combine the elements from the photos to create a new space, a new figure, a new world to experience. I am an expressive painter and am interested in energy and movement. I am drawn to certain colors and enjoy staying with them for a time. I work on several pieces at once and together so that bodies of work tend to emerge from my studio sessions.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

My creative journey is twofold: I am driven to create because I am a maker. I know that if I am not doing my own work, furthering and expanding my own practice, that I am not honoring my self and my truest nature.

I also value my creative journey for and along with my community-both my creative community and my local community. I am convinced that thinking with and connecting with makes stronger communities and leads to a more fulfilling lived experience. I believe in collaboration and communication, in taking the time to hear from and see others and to work together to enrich our communities. All of the fine arts promote civic engagement and when our communities are connected and care, our lives are enriched.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

In my opinion, what society can do to best support artists is to engage. Art is for everyone. It is not for the elite, it is for you. I think that having a public audience who is willing to engage with artists and their works leads to connected communities. Artists are interested in questions and processes, not just products and objects, and when our local communities practice valuing these members of society, it will lead to openness and curiosity. So often I talk to people who feel that they don’t know enough to go to a museum or gallery, or who can’t afford to purchase artwork, so they see no reason to go and experience it. You and the life experience that you have gathered is more than enough to show up and interact with the work. You may not like it, and that’s fine, but you will develop your own taste and a greater awareness of what is happening in the arts if you’re willing to engage. Not everyone is at a point in their lives where they are able to invest in artwork as a form of support, and that is ok. Most gallery openings are free and open to the public! Why not go and see what’s going on in the art world?!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.katiemurphy.art
• Instagram: @katiemurphy.art