Neil Murphy's paintings at the Wenger Gallery, 855 Montgomery street, are inspired by some very complex ideas involving music and mathematics. According to Leslie Wenger, a large painting of a Hawaiian mountain range is based on Murphy's calculations of the harmonic system that would result if the valley in front of it were converted into one gigantic organ pipe.
It's all right with me is Murphy needs such concept to inspire what he does, so long as he does not dispense with painting, for these are among the freshest, most lyrical canvasses to come along in some time.
Murphy uses various dyes that are stained into linen and other fine-grained material to form transparent, ambiguous atmospheres in which he floats wiry lines drawn in ink and spots of radiant pastels.
Some of this paintings are relatively naturalistic views of cliffs and rocks, all in deep blues, amid which white lines curl toward arrows at their ends, forming both river currents and vectors of movement and energy. Others are more abstract, sprinkled with tiny arrows, free-form geometric shapes and other simple but eccentric forms, although the sense of nature, and of natural forces, is never far away these tiny shapes hover in indeterminate spaces, linked together by lines of force that are sometimes visible, sometimes the function of minutely calculated intervals and relationships, and they form a fascinating visual analogy to the erratic rhythms and effects of electronically mixed and natural sounds that Murphy has designed to complement his paintings.
One thinks of Paul Klee in looking at Murphy's work, as in discussing its relationship to mathematics and music, but more as an undertone that as a dominating influence, and for the most part, one thinks of Neil Murphy.
Neil Murphy's paintings at the Wenger Gallery, 855 Montgomery street, are inspired by some very complex ideas involving music and mathematics. According to Leslie Wenger, a large painting of a Hawaiian mountain range is based on Murphy's calculations of the harmonic system that would result if the valley in front of it were converted into one gigantic organ pipe.
It's all right with me is Murphy needs such concept to inspire what he does, so long as he does not dispense with painting, for these are among the freshest, most lyrical canvasses to come along in some time.
Murphy uses various dyes that are stained into linen and other fine-grained material to form transparent, ambiguous atmospheres in which he floats wiry lines drawn in ink and spots of radiant pastels.
Some of this paintings are relatively naturalistic views of cliffs and rocks, all in deep blues, amid which white lines curl toward arrows at their ends, forming both river currents and vectors of movement and energy. Others are more abstract, sprinkled with tiny arrows, free-form geometric shapes and other simple but eccentric forms, although the sense of nature, and of natural forces, is never far away these tiny shapes hover in indeterminate spaces, linked together by lines of force that are sometimes visible, sometimes the function of minutely calculated intervals and relationships, and they form a fascinating visual analogy to the erratic rhythms and effects of electronically mixed and natural sounds that Murphy has designed to complement his paintings.
One thinks of Paul Klee in looking at Murphy's work, as in discussing its relationship to mathematics and music, but more as an undertone that as a dominating influence, and for the most part, one thinks of Neil Murphy.