Prudence Murphy
Detective Special
Opening Reception Thursday August 21 at 6pm.
– image courtesy of Prudence Murphy, 2014
In her new series, Detective Special, artist Prudence Murphy builds upon her photographic inquiry into domestic rituals and the gestural acts of playtime by considering the role of social conditioning.
Photographically depicting fragments of guns and reflecting on their social significance and modes of operation, Detective Specialconceptually shifts gears by moving away from Murphy’s previous focus of playtime in the personal domestic realm to understanding its effects in society at large.
By presenting arsenal in lieu of their complete forms, Murphy’s most recent body of work favours a fragmented approach to the documentation of her subject that intricately outlines the slippery terrain it occupies as a societal norm.
Biography.
Prudence Murphy is based in Sydney and lectures at the University of NSW | Art & Design. She has exhibited widely in Australia and was recently selected to exhibit in the 2014 Ulsan International Photography Festival in South Korea. She was a finalist in the 2014 Josephine Ulrick & Win Schubert Photography Award, 2013 Bowness Photography Prize, and the 37th Alice Art Prize. In 2007 she was short-listed for the Art and Australia Contemporary Art Award. Murphy’s work is represented in national and private collections in Australia and overseas. Recent exhibitions include Future Forms, Australian Academy of Design, Melbourne, 2014; Ulsan International Photography Festival, Ulsan Culture and Art Centre, South Korea, 2014; Boys with Guns, Gallery 2010, Sydney, 2013, Queensland Centre for Photography, Brisbane, 2012 & Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne, 2011; The Drawing Room, BREENSPACE, Sydney, 2012; The rest is silence, Death be Kind, Melbourne, 2011.
