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RYAN SARAH MURPHY

Ryan Sarah Murphy (American, b. 1978) is a visual artist living and working in New York City. Her collage-based work is process-driven and incorporates the use of found and repurposed materials. From 2012-2014 she held a studio residency at The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts and is the recipient of a 2014 Fellowship Grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts. Her work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions across the US including C24 Gallery (NY), Platform Gallery (Seattle), Lesley Heller Workspace (NY), Mixed Greens (NY), Liliana Bloch Gallery (Dallas), Radiator Arts (Long Island City, NY) and ODETTA Gallery (Brooklyn). Permanent collections include the Foundation Center (New York) and the Holter Museum of Art (Montana). Ryan received her BFA in Sculpture from the School of Visual Arts in 2001.

“My creative practice is intuitive and process-driven, prompted by the found ephemera of my daily experience. Responding to the inherent energy within discarded and repurposed objects, I allow for the material to act as the guide, moving through the construction of a piece with no set plan or intended outcome.”

These collages, suggesting odd terrains and shifting perspectives, are the result of a subconscious examination of space – both the concrete environment of the city and the interior dwelling of the self. Much like the various landscapes we both inhabit and construct, these collages serve as a tenuous meeting point of architectural and abstract elements.

“There is a seemingly incessant drive to find grounding and placement in a widely untethered space, be it the concrete terrain beneath our feet or the visceral dwellings of the interior self.”

— Ryan Sarah Murphy