Bríd Murphy

Bríd Murphy is a visual artist currently based in Dublin. Her practice explores themes such as gender, anxiety and identity through a wide variety of media such as video, drawing & performance. She graduated with a first class honours BA in Sculpture and Combined Media from Limerick School of Art & Design in 2019. Since then, she has completed a graduate residency award in the National Sculpture Factory and was shortlisted for the 2019 Zurich Portrait Prize in the National Gallery of Ireland. She has recently shown work in the National Museum of Ireland, Crawford Art Gallery and as a part of Cork Film Festival.

 

In 2021, she was invited to take part in the Graft project. Graft, which was developed and curated by the National Sculpture Factory and the Glucksman, commissioned five artists to create new temporary sculptural interventions in Cork City. Designed to transform, disrupt and celebrate the existing built environment, the project brought a temporary cultural transformation to Cork’s urban realm inviting the public to view the new artworks at a safe distance as offered by outdoor presentations.

Blue I, II, III is concerned with the anxieties surrounding issues such as gender and self-identity. I address traditional notions of gender norms through video portraiture, sound and installation. These videos, referencing Renaissance and Baroque painting and culture, feature bodies who do not conform to traditional gender binaries.

Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to, and differencing between, masculinity and femininity. Blue has always been perceived as a ‘gendered’ colour. Since the 12th Century, blue, a precious pigment often derived from lapis lazuli, was associated with divinity and femininity and was often reserved for depictions of the Madonna. This is in contrast to the twentieth-century concept of ‘blue for boys’ and ‘pink for girls’.

The videos were shot as a reference to reclined or seemingly floating icons and figures often present in frescos on cathedral ceilings. The videos are played on three LED TVs presented as a traditional triptych. The semi-nude bodies in the videos are reminiscent of Michelangelo’s frescos in the Sistine Chapel, which were censored due to the Pope’s view that nudity was outrageous and shameful.

 


Performers: Isolde Donohoe, Day Magee.
Sound: Christy O’Brien.

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