Jillian Murphy

Here, is a Stranger, 2024

Oil on canvas | Unframed: 40 x 30 x 2 cm

‘This painting is a double portrait, depicting two past versions of myself in a mirror; in front as a twenty-one year old adult and behind in a framed picture as a six year old child. The mirror acts not as a reflector of the present but as a window into the past. The title references the idea that not only are these two past versions of myself strangers to me but that here, the present time itself, is also unattainable.’ - Jillian Murphy.

Jillian Murphy is an artist whose practice focuses primarily on painting and who explores themes relating to time, identity and hauntology, and addresses concepts of presence and absence. Figures appear in mirrors, behind screens, or partially obscured, their identities fragmented. Through her work she considers the idea that anything can become a type of spectre, and that an object, an action, a whisper or a flash of light can all leave a permanent trace on time. She maintains that the act of painting is a purposeful and personal exercise in pinning time down, a form of possessing time in order to make the impermanent permanent.

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