Self Portraits 1985

Catherine Murphy made this painting, Self Portraits, which looks like it was made with thin layers of oil paint, built up slowly. What's really striking is how she's constructed this image with such a complex layering of reflections. The painting becomes a meditation on the act of seeing itself, the way it shows us how perception is never straightforward, but always mediated. The painting is smooth, it’s so smooth that its eerie. I can see every little detail, every hair on her skin, as she captures the scene in this studio space. It's an illusion, of course. She plays with the idea that painting is, always, a form of looking in the mirror. I am thinking of how Alice Neel also painted the naked body. And the tradition of Courbet, and Manet. But Murphy gives it a totally new spin. It's like she's reminding us that art is always in conversation with itself. You know? Always questioning, always seeing things from a slightly different angle.