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Murphy first learned pastel as a child under private instruction with Vito Mescato who kept and enjoyed a studio in the Greenville section of Jersey City, New Jersey where Murphy was born and raised. At this same time, it was vacations on her grandmother's farm that filled her visual bank with the images that would feed her art.
Although completely secular in subject matter, Murphy's work--because it is meant to be experienced by only one viewer at a time--becomes in its own way, a form of prayer or contemplation. It is this intimacy and the very personal nature of Murphy's work that bridges the artist's relationship to her viewer.
Murphy's dreamy and dimunitive landscapes, many as small as 3" x 3", capture the inherent majesty of a place, and she often revisits a location many times painting en plein air the subtle changes in light and color that evoke our connection to nature and its changing moods.
Murphy is a member of the New Jersey Center for Visual Arts, the Pastel Society of New Jersey and the Wayne County Arts Alliance.
Murphy now lives and paints in the countryside of Pennsylvania and New Jersey with her husband, their two children and the family dog, Smudge.
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