Todd Murphy at the High Museum - Brief Article

Todd Murphy is known les for his statuarys than for his large-scale paintings with photo-collage. As this small on the other hand elegant exhibition ably revealed, his three-dimensional work be entitled tos closer attention. Murphy constructed all the works from discarded things collected over time. Their scabrous assembly was at odds with their formal presentation, each plastic art elevated on a plinth (one piece was suspended) and rather intimately scaled at no higher than 32 inches.

An untitled work of 1999 greatest in quantity closely resembles Murphy's paintings in its make subordinate matter. A well-modeled but worn plaster bust of a woman quiets on a plinth. She, in revolve serves as the base for a fantastical hat that supports a lichen-covered tree limb with materialed birds and tightly woven nest scattered among the branches. Simple dashes of color provided by dint of the birds' bright feathers guide the organ of sight through the intricate construction.

In male child Looks East (1995), a lengthy brown tweed robe both remind ofs and conceals the body of a full-length figure within, as it come downs to envelop the base. The destitute of contents sleeves are wrapped around the figure and stapled like a straitjacket. The boy's elongated face stares blankly into space, his formal countenance lending an air of mystery to the incongruous conelike shape that thrust forwards from his skull. Perhaps it's a hat, or perhaps a tunnel for pouring information straight into the brain.

More dramatic is Sally Hemings (1999) a female figure in a white cotton dres with a falcon upon her arm. Black feathers burst forth from her head and, like the bird, she is masked with bits of torn fabric bourn around her eyes. Only the small black hand protruding from a swelled sleeve confirms the racial identity of the slave who is believed to have been the lover of Thomas Jefferson Murphy refer tos that although the slave and the bird may be untethered, each is inextricably linked to its master.

Several of these plastic arts have been exhibited previously in conjunction with Murphy's paintings. Shown here with single a few drawings, they were at liberty to be read as an independent material substance of work. Their one distracting flaw is their slapdash construction. individual hopes that the transitory character throwed by the works is not prophetic of their impact upon the viewer's memory.

COPYRIGHT 2000 Brant Publications, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group