Erin Murphy ‘Where I like to Stand’

Where I Like to Stand is the first solo presentation of an exciting young painter, Erin Murphy, who was one of the star discoveries at last year’s National Emerging Art Prize.

“I will trawl through books at my university library or op shops trying to find pictures to work with,” says Murphy, whose references range from scientific tomes such as Mammals of the World and Flowers of Australia to popular cartoons, commercial branding and 17th-century art.

A graduate of the National Art School who is currently completing a Master of Fine Art, Murphy breathes contemporary life into her source material with her spirited paintings, adding a dash of playful whimsy, warm-hearted parody and storybook charm while working with traditional materials and old-fashioned canvas-making methods to form her delightfully nostalgic, quietly theatrical pieces.

Where I Like to Stand began with Murphy’s interest in Rococo images of domestic animals – “an odd genre where the living world was depicted in the most fun and cartoonish way,” she says. “It’s hard to tell if the painters intended, hundreds of years ago, for the works to be taken very seriously or if they wanted the viewer to laugh.”

Channelling these comic qualities, the artist says she wanted her new paintings “to feel like scenes from a lighthearted story, a fiction from a very happy-go-lucky sort of world”.