membership / artist member

Charlie Murphy

http://www.charliemurphy.co.uk
download cv here

Charlie Murphy’s portfolio includes a range dramatic visual art installations, glass and light sculptures, photography, video and live participatory performances.

She graduated in Fine Art (Photography) from the RCA in 1999 and has exhibited at many national and international art festivals, public spaces and galleries and including The Wellcome Collection, Artsway’s New Forest Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2005, the Edinburgh Festival 2006 and Artist Collectables at Tate Modern 2007. She is currently based in London.

Charlie Murphy has presented a wide range of live events and installations using photographic, video, performance and sculptural processes.

Her Big Wheel, staged for the Big Dance Festival in 2008, was an epic cart-wheel chain that runs backwards and forwards in a ‘mexican wave’ like motion across the Millenium Bridge. Created in collaboration with three top London gymnastics clubs – this dramatic spectacle involved over 200 performers and formed the longest ever acrobatic chain to be staged in London. 



Following this successful pilot, Charlie has recently been commissioned by The Stanley Picker Gallery to develop a 'Kingston Big Wheel' which will be presented as a large scale public performance and new digital video work this summer. Recruiting up to 300 local gymnasts, dancers and athletes, she developing a range of new choreographies which will interweave formal structures, rituals and gestures from dance, play, athletics, gymnastics, politics, biochemistry and moving image history. This major project will feature as part of the Gallery’s ‘No Competition!’ off-site exhibition programme (April – July 2012), which comprises artists’ projects exploring the relationship between lifestyle and non–competitive sporting activities, and coincides with celebrations leading up to the 2012 London Olympics.

The Anatomy of Desire (1999-2011) visualises some of the fleeting experiences and dialogues of human intimacy. Collecting hundreds of casts from the inside of people’s kisses with her famous touring ‘kiss-in’ event, Murphy has created an extraordinary survey of desire through an extraordinary series of intimate glass sculptures and video works which were recently been exhibited at the Wellcome Collection.


Flow (2010-12) is a new series of glass sculptures that explore the viscous and flowing properties of lead crystal glass. Tantalising moments of animation and flow are frozen in clear and pitch black glass like question marks - forever suspended.



Charlie is also currently developing a new series of 'Pantomime Pony' events and interventions following her successful 'Show Pony Parade' created in collaboration with ArtSway for their 'Open' weekend activities in 2011. New events are scheduled for London and South Eastern venues throughout 2012.



Murphy's early explorations of the extremes of photographic recording led to several print series (Optic, Plant Harlotry & Cut Glass) charting the spatial, optical and refractive qualities of glass and plant life above and below ground. Fusing art and science to create mesmerising light plays of refraction and shadow, these highly atmospheric panoramas exaggerate and conflate time as stunning diagrammatic records of the motion of light.



The Art of Tickling Trout and Other Sensual Pleasures (2002-03) is a major video and mixed media installation which explores some of the unspoken motivations and behaviours revealed in the handling and controlling of animals. Created during her residency at Artsway in the New Forest, this series of 22 short video vignettes present powerful insights into the underlying dynamics of these exchanges.



Murphy’s Tall Ship Show Salute is inspired by the stunning rituals and pageantry from the age of sail and will be presented as a large-scale outdoor theatre work involving aerial, naval and dance choreographies. Drawing on successful R&D for this project, Murphy presented a small-scale aerial show To Kiss A Sailor for Liverpool’s On the Waterfront Festival 2011 and will continue developing this work towards larger scale realisations.

The Big Wheel: http://vimeo.com/20444049

Show Pony Parade: http://vimeo.com/26967844

To Kiss a Sailor: http://vimeo.com/16828689

Salute: http://vimeo.com/6995379

The Culture Label: http://www.culturelabel.com/search-culturelabel/?q=Charlie%20Murphy