Idris Murphy (b.1949) is a Sydney based landscape painter. He paints in the landscape (referred to as en plein air) undertaking extensive painting trips in Australia and overseas. His paintings move as he says ‘somewhere between abstraction and figuration’. He brings different perspectives of a place to a single image, making it feel, as a viewer, you are within the landscape itself. And this makes his work so powerful. His work can be said to be landscapes of feelings. His small paintings are completed in the landscape, while some are brought back to the studio to be developed into larger works. Murphy talks about the silence that he feels when painting en plein air—despite surrounding sounds. He also notes the importance of colour in his paintings. At various times of the day he says, the colour in the landscape can so luminous and exuberant as in Trees and Shadows, and The Savannah and Boab, but it also can be so faded, and, in Quiet Pink Shadows, Fowlers Gap, colour is barely there at all. Another feature of Murphy’s paintings is the quirkiness and humour he captures through the selection and placement of particular elements.
Murphy exhibits in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Hobart.
He is Head of Drawing at the National Art School, Sydney.
His work is held in the public collections of the National Gallery of Australia, National Library of Australia, Federal Parliament House, Art Gallery of NSW, State Library of NSW, State Library of Queensland; University Art Collections; Australian Regional Gallery Collections. He has received many awards and residencies in Australia and overseas.
