Stephen Murphy

Stephen Murphy is a Cork born artist who lives and works in Limerick City. Alongside his art practice, he is also an educator who has been described as “inspiring” by the UK’s ‘Good Schools Guide‘ and currently lectures on Mary Immaculate College’s Bachelor of Education Programme.

Murphy has exhibited at venues nationally and internationally including the British National Portrait Gallery, the Royal Hibernian Academy, Sønderborg Multikulturhuset, Wolverhampton Art Gallery & Aberdeen Art Gallery. His work is held in private collections in Ireland, the UK, Denmark, Poland, Hungary, Australia, Germany and the USA, and is also held in the collections of institutions including Cambridge University. 

Murphy’s art practice spans the mediums of drawing, painting, printmaking, collage and sculpture, but the one consistent across

these media is his concern with documenting all facets of the human condition. In his works he has illustrated love, anger, mortality, innocence, guilt, jealousy, boredom, fear, pride and shame. His art practice is concerned with aiming to create an “apex image”.

“Playing Possum” is a symbolic representation of Murphy’s formative experiences such as playing childhood games like ‘cowboys and Indians’, the monomyth of “The Hero’s journey” coupled with visual references to imagery from art history including the Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian.