The work: Grace Murphy, Musidora #2, 2022. Oil on wood, 40 x 40cm. Courtesy: the artist.
Currently studying a Bachelor of Fine Arts at The Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne, Grace Murphy works with the traditional medium of oil painting on wood panels to explore what she calls detached portraiture. Referencing historical paintings and sculptures, Murphy recontextualises her subject within a contemporary context, cropping in on the subject’s face to remove them from their original context and render them, in the artist’s words “without personality… cold”.