ABOUT THE ARTIST

Noella Murphy (she/her) is a mad and disabled actor, costume designer, visual artist, and all around clown. She holds a BFA from NSCAD University, and is an alum of Kinsale’s Wooden O Drama Program (Ireland). Despite an active visual arts practice of her own, Noella is deeply interested in sharing art as a therapeutic tool, and much of Noella’s professional career has been dedicated to working with folks with varying backgrounds, disabilities, young, and old. Noella uses these various expertises, as well as her background in clowning and visual art, to explore deeper, more challenging subject matter, while simultaneously infusing these discoveries with light, care, and play.

Visually, Noella has been fascinated by the flora that surrounds her. Exploring realism with permission to choose unnatural size, colours, or different materials,  Noella never tires of botanical art and simply through those method in order to show the viewer a different perspective. Her pieces range from lino cuts, etchings to watercolour on wood canvases with pen on top and more recently paint marker. Drawn to line and stippling, the style ranges from realism to a more graphic approach. 

Having struggled for years with chronic pain, being a medical mystery and being put through the ringer of medical tests and surgery has meant a lot of time in bed. Being immobile after always being a physical person, changed a lot of things for bad and good. One of the good things being forced to have lot of time on hand and strangely the constraints of what art supplies were feasible from bed. Having those restrictions actually became the platform for figuring out different ways of self expression that would never have been explored without these restrictions. What came was weirdly more freedom, boundaries that had subconsciously been put up about realism and drawing were thrown away.

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