Marilyn Murphy: Suspended Animation

In this mid-career survey, comprised of forty paintings and drawings by Vanderbilt University professor Marilyn Murphy, the artist’s subjects – represented with the bland anonymity of advertising art from the 1940s and 50s – were confronted with mysterious forces from nature and from within the repressed self that threaten to disrupt their ordered world. Murphy added a surrealistic dimension through the introduction of elements that seemed to have no rational place in the scene, but that contributed to the sense of unease and foreboding.

This exhibition was organized by the Frist Art Museum, with a catalogue essay by the acclaimed art critic Lucy Lippard.