Reviews:
https://artasiseeitblog.wordpress.com/2015/11/17/crowns-and-nitrous-oxide-bri-murphy-summer-2015/
Statement:
I was lucky enough to have epilepsy as a kid. It gave me an archive of medical files that have served as a visual and conceptual basis for exploration and experimentation. Specifically, my work draws on a foundation of medical science, technology, and a personal history with disease and disorder to address contemporary issues such as the stigmatization of mental health, the ethical implications of technology and the body, and concepts of identity. These themes are communicated with familiar imagery across a variety of media, from porcelain anatomical models and lithophanes to actual medical instruments to documenting the consumption of prescription drugs.
Through the use of medical imaging software, I engineer 3D models of organs which become the centerpieces for my sculpture and video explorations. These slipcast objects are made with porcelain, a precious material that generates a provocative dichotomy of permanence and fragility. Working with this kind of technology allows me to access a realm that converges our external world with our internal selves in both a physiological and psychological sense. The exposure of these interior forms evoke a feeling of vulnerability that is particularly compelling me. The tension between intimacy and invasiveness is one that we all experience as human beings both emotionally – through relationships, interpersonal encounters, and within the nuances of our own psyches – and physically – through affectionate touch, illness and disease, and the ultimate ephemeral nature of our bodies. Within my conceptual process, I present not one of these ideas but an open-ended experience that offers the opportunity for introspection while I attempt to connect to my viewers in ways that define us as both individual and universally human.
Bri Murphy 