Bio
Lecturer (2018). BFA, 2004, Cleveland Institute of Art; MFA, 2017, School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Exhibitions: Loyola University Museum of Art; Wichita Art Museum; Akron Art Museum; Mana Contemporary, NJ and Miami; Handwerker Gallery, Ithaca College; DFBRL8R; Links Hall; Nofound Photo Fair; Agent Double, Switzerland; Foley Gallery, NYC; Sullivan Galleries; SITE; Reinberger Gallery; Fed Galleries, MI; SPACES gallery, Cleveland; Gene Siskel Center; Cranbrook Academy of Art, MI. Awards: New Artist's Society; NASA Columbia Shuttle Investigation; Mildred Eynon Woodell grant; Joyce Seid grant. Publications: Discover Magazine; Chicago Tribune; ArtDaily; Art and Science Journal; BuzzFeed; Popular Photography; ARTfile; 360, Switzerland; ITCH, South Africa; Carpaccio, Spain. Bibliography: Between the Real and Utopia; The Land of Here and Now; MAKE8ELIEVE Residencies: Mana Contemporary Miami; Elsewhere, NC; Contemporary Artist's Center, NY; SITE:LAB, Chicago; Metropolitan 9 Hotel, Cleveland; Shared Space Studio, MI.
Personal Statement
Michelle Murphy is an Artist, Lecturer, and Independent Curator based in Chicago.
Murphy works to revise the exclusionary historical landscape of science and exploration. Her/Their lens-based and performance work encompasses futility and spectacle. Murphy performs in public locations, enacting gestural shifts to common, expected, or even suggested demographics or behaviors. Similarly, in her/their photographic and video work, Murphy employs lighting, optical effects, or durational changes to demonstrate a contrast between the aesthetics and functionality of consumer objects. Spectacle in Murphy’s work is counter-balanced with humor and gestures of futility by (over)extending the corporeal body, using props and costumes, and demonstrating the inadequacies of consumer objects. Notably, Murphy’s practice draws from first-hand experience within the Space Program; as a photographer for NASA from 2004 to 2015, she/they accumulated understanding of NASA’s science pedagogy and PR methodology. This informs her/their exploration of: Utopic space, human rights, Big Bang, birth, counter culture, eco- tragedy, urban space, Space exploration, and the extraterrestrial. Murphy’s research orbits around those omitted from popularized narratives of these topics.
Disclaimer: All work represents the views of the INDIVIDUAL ARTISTS & AUTHORS who created them, and are not those of the school or museum of the Art Institute.
