David Murphy Distances

Until November 30, 2024, the abstract work of the English painter and sculptor David Murphy will be exhibited for the new chapter of Cadogan SOLO, a project at the Milanese venue of Cadogan Gallery, aimed to explore the work of a single artist at a time in the space in Via Bramante 5.

Distances is the title of the exhibition that brings together works by Murphy, focused on the interaction between volume, light, space and line. To create the paintings Long Ending and Blanket, Murphy followed a long and meticulous creative process, defining abstract and meditative works, with silhouettes and shapes close to those of tracks and furrows, mountains and valleys, textiles and upholstery. To make the Gesso Panels, the artist relied on a technique devised by Cennino Cennini dating back to the 15th century, using traditional French chalk and rabbit skin glue. Next, Murphy applies multiple layers of casein paint to the panels, creating a network of lines and thus a surface with a texture similar to that of a fabric. Finally, after the drying and polishing of the panels, the surface of the canvas has been scratched, producing a sequence of more or less regular lines and carving unprecedented images and shapes out of the chalk.

By investigating mass and tension, by pushing materials to their brink and responding with sensitivity, David makes work which is transgressive of those fixed ideas of what art is and should be. This is an innately physical practice. Rhythm and movement flow throughout, revealing and pointing us towards the fundamental energy in all things. David's work lives in the threshold between boundaries, between 2D and 3D, between figuration and abstraction, between the organic and the man-made, in the space just beyond our perception.
Jo Baring, Director of the Ingram Collection.