Walking into Pamela Murphy’s show at Fine Line Designs gallery in Ephraim is a little like waking up in the middle of your grandmother’s photo album with pictures of her sisters on vacation in demure bathing costumes, her uncle rowing a boat in the middle of a lake, and snapshot after snapshot of kids doing somewhat goofy things, and occasionally improbable things, like a young girl walking along with a sprinkling can which causes flowers to rise in a line behind her.
Murphy has been making these images for several years now, and she almost invites charges of sentimentality. Nostalgia and reminiscence, yes; sentimentality no.
Three aspects of her work keep it fresh, intriguing, sometimes amusing, and occasionally provocative. In no particular order:
The painting itself. I don’t recall all the details and you can probably find the definitive information on her Web site, but Murphy’s paintings have layers of paint, some of it scraped off, that enhance the feeling that this of an old, and not necessarily archivally preserved, image. Her work is a world away from the sentimental painters whose images should never move beyond greeting cards. Spend some time and study the surface of her works.
The people. My favorites are quite different. Some are of youngsters totally absorbed in what they are doing, lost to the world. Hmm, second thought, maybe this doesn’t happen all that often in actual family photographs where the father, usually, is asking the kids to look at the camera. But many of Murphy’s paintings give the sense of watching kids examine their own worlds without a care about anyone else. On the other hand, the three women in bathing costumes, arms lined around each other as they face the image-maker, display a total, and not necessarily comfortable, awareness of the photographer -- presumably.
Warm humor. Ok, this might be condensing four points to three, but the girl with the watering can growing flowers, a young boy riding a pig, and a boy making the acquaintance of a bird are examples. The paintings often have a lot of foreground detail which is separate from the activity of the people depicted. Oh wait, that may be the first point, about the paintings themselves. A little boy sits with his head in his hands, and across the surface of the painting are several very intimidating mathematical equations.
Check the Web site, and go to the gallery. This is strong, interesting work.
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