BRENNA MURPHY
AXIS SPREAD

June 28 – July 22, 2017
Artist reception July 5, 5:00 to 7:00 pm
First Thursday art walk (artist present) July 6, 6:00 to 8:00 pm

THE WORK
Brenna Murphy returns to Portland from New York to configure a labyrinthian floor installation using her digitally-fabricated sculptural elements, textiles and prints. From the start of the exhibition until July 5, Murphy will rearrange the installation every evening while the gallery is closed, exercising pathways between mental architecture and spatial relationships.

Murphy's distinct visual language arises in part from being grounded in both physical and virtual spaces, embracing equally the precision of computer imaging and the imperfection of the organic. She relies on an attuned, internal sensibility to digitally carve forms and compose images (fabricated using CNC-routing, 3D and 2D printing with or on a variety of materials). The modularity of her works allows Murphy to combine them with other elements, found and made, to reconfigure them into complex installations, “until the arrangement is balanced in a way that creates a perfectly cohesive, vibrating ecosystem.”

Axis Spread  is the second in a series of exhibitions at Upfor featuring work by women media artists. These successive exhibitions by Morehshin Allahyari, Brenna Murphy and Katie Torn conclude with a collaborative presentation of work in the latter half of August.

THE ARTIST
Brenna Murphy (American, b. 1986 in Edmonds, WA) is a New York-based artist and musician engaging with analog, virtual, post-digital methods of creation. Murphy received her BFA from the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, OR (2009) and won Foto Museum's 2016 Post-Photography Prototyping Prize. In addition to her solo practice, Murphy is a collaborator with performance art collectives Oregon Painting Society and MSHR (a performance art project with Birch Cooper). MSHR is concurrently exhibiting work at MoMA's PS1 and the Rubin Museum of Art. Reviews of exhibitions and interviews with Brenna Murphy, as a solo artist and part of these collectives, have been published in numerous international and English-language magazines, including Art in America. More about this artist.