Articles Tagged with: Benjamin murphy

Delphian Open Call 2019 Winners

We are very pleased to announce the five Open Call winners from our 2019 show. Each of the five judges was allowed one Judges Pick, the list of these is below.

Prints of all of these, as well as the rest of the show, are available on our website. Click HERE for more.

Rhiannon Salisbury

Benjamin Murphy‘s Judges Pick, as well as being the Overall Winner

open call winners

Rhiannon Salisbury – UHH

Vojtech Kovarik

Nick JS Thompson‘s Judges Pick

open call winners

Vojtech Kovarik – Self Portrait With A Snake

Valerie Savchits

Wingshan Smith’s Judges Pick

Open Call Winners

Valerie Savchits – Dissolved Into Nothingness

Nettle Grellier

Hector Campbell‘s Judges Pick

open call winners

Nettle Grellier – Daybed

Jukka Virkkunen

Florence Hutching‘s Judges Pick

open call winners

Jukka Virkkunen – Flowers III


How To Navigate The Art World – Panel Discussion

After the success of of our last talk Transition: How To Prosper In The Art World, we decided to do another similar one, this one taking its inspiration from our 2019 Open Call exhibition – How To Navigate The Art World.

how to navigate the art world

UHH by 2019 Open Call winner Rhiannon Salisbury

Panelists include:

Delphian director and artist Benjamin Murphy.

Delphian director and artist Nick JS Thompson.

2019 Open Call winner – artist Rhiannon Salisbury.

Curator, writer, and art-historian Hector Campbell.

All of the questions that will be put to the panel have been asked by followers – please feel free to add your own via instagram @dephiangallery

To attend, please RSVP to the Eventbrite HERE

 


First fifteen winners of our 2019 Open Call

Here are the first 15 winners of our 2019 Open Call. We had an incredibly difficult time whittling the 10,000 submissions down to just 45, but we got there in the end. Here are the first 15.

The below artists are in alphabetical order, and the works below aren’t necessarily the ones in the show.

Aleksander Jednaszewski (@Szarrza)

Aubrey Laret (@Aubrey_Laret)

View this post on Instagram

Thank you @delphiangallery for selecting my picture Dead Flowers for their open call. To be exhibited from the 28th March.

A post shared by Aubrey Laret (@aubrey_laret) on

Bill Daggs (@BillDaggs)

View this post on Instagram

‘More Best than Moore was’ 100 x 100cm, acrylic on canvas – off to its new home this week.

A post shared by Bill Daggs (@billdaggs) on

Billy Bagilhole (@BillyBagilhole)

View this post on Instagram

“Wet cigarette” Mixed media on canvas 100cm x 70cm Excited to share the Charcoal frame I’ve been working on / swipe right to see in detail. Slightly different to my previous work so Im eager to hear any opinions! ? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . #painting #artcuration #painter #fineart #artcollector #mixedmedia #artist #artistique #gallerist #artmag #artcurator #acrylicabstract #canvas #curation #paintingworkshop #interiordesign #abstractpainting #contemporarypainting #artmag #paintingsdaily #art_collective #artistresidency #artgallery #artcurators #creativespace #markmaking #artist_magazine #delphianopencall

A post shared by Billy Bagilhole (@billybagilhole) on

Blake O’Brien (@Blake_Obrien)

View this post on Instagram

new little one with a tac #delphianopencall

A post shared by Blake O’Brien (@blake_obrien) on

Brad Teodoruk and Neil Ernest Tomkins (@BradTeodoruk & @Neil_Ernest_Tomkins)

B.D. Graft (@B.D.Graft)

Caleb Hahne (@CalebHahne)

Daniel Bierdümpfl (@DanielBierduempfl)

David Iain Brown (@DavidIainBrown)

Elizabeth Power (@ElizabethPowerArt)

Elliot Nehra (@ElliotNehra)

Fabian Warnsing (@FabianWarnsing)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by F A B I A N W A R N S I N G (@fabianwarnsing) on

Fergus Polglase (@FergusPolglase)

View this post on Instagram

‘The taste of mud’ (Rugby players) 130cm x 160cm Acrylic, graphite, spray paint and pastel on canvas 2019

A post shared by FERGUS POLGLASE (@ferguspolglase) on

Francisca Pinto (@FranciscaPinta)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Francisca Pinto (@franciscapinta) on


2019 Open Call Winners!

We have been absolutely blown away by the response to this year’s Open Call, and we are extremely pleased to announce the winners below. It was incredibly tough whittling down the 10,000 submissions to just 45, and so an unsuccessful application should not be seen as a failure. We could probably put on 20 great shows with all of the amazing work we received.

2019 winners

Vojtech Kovarik

Delphian Gallery’s Open Call is an annual free-to-enter online competition with the intention of discovering the most captivating and challenging work by emerging and early career artists. The first prize winner will win a fully funded solo exhibition with Delphian Gallery in London in 2019. With over 10,000 submissions from around the world, our selection this year embraces the aesthetic subjectivities of the curatorial team. Aided by last year’s overall winner Florence Hutchings, alongside curator, Hector Campbell as judges, we whittled down the submissions until we had just 45. The resulting works displayed are vibrantly varied in style, medium, and geography but build upon a collective formal language of immediacy.

Please join us for the private view on the 28th of March, you can find the full details HERE

 

The 2019 winners are:

Aleksander Jednaszewski, Aubrey Laret, Bill Daggs, Billy Bagilhole, Blake O’Brien, Brad Teodoruk and Neil Tomkins, Brian de Graft, Caleb Hahne, Daniel Bierdümpfl, David Iain Brown, Elizabeth Power, Elliot Nehra, Fabian Warnsing, Fergus Polglase, Francisca Pinto, Gabriele Herzog, Geoffrey Bohm, Jacob Littlejohn, Jake Grewal, Jemisha Maadhavji, Jim McElvaney, Jonas Mayer, Jukka Virkkunen, Julie Caves, Kirsten Valentine, Klaus is Koming, Loreal Prystaj, Mateusz Sarzynski, Matt Coombs, Max Freund, Michalitsa Kozakopoulou, Nettle Grellier, Peter Evans, Rachael Neale, Rhiannon Salisbury, Rhys Thomas, Ronan Bowes, Rune Christensen, Sasha Baszynski, Sergio Giannotta, Sophi Megan, Tania Alvarez, Tomas Harker, Valerie Savchits, Vojtech Kovarik.

2019 winners

Jemisha Maadhavji

Prints of the works are available on our website. The exhibition is kindly supported by theprintspace, and drinks for the private view are graciously provided by Crate Brewery and Jarr Kombucha.


Envy For The Living – Benjamin Murphy – *SOLD OUT*

It has been four years since Benjamin Murphy released his last woodcut, which proved to be his most popular print to date. We are very excited to announce that his newest woodcut ENVY FOR THE LIVING is available NOW!

envy for the living

 

Benjamin’s prints always sell fast, and he was recently included in Stylist Magazines list of hot new art prints, with his immensely popular linoprint from 2018 Hamartia.

 

Envy for the living - benjamin murphy

Hamartia (2018) – Linoprint – Stylist Magazine

ENVY FOR THE LIVING is an 50x70cm woodcut, which has been hand drawn, cut, and printed by the artist, using a Victorian printing press from the early 1900s.

It is printed on the highest quality Norfolk 210gsm cartridge paper, using archival printmaking inks.
In a limited edition of only 15

 

(THIS PRINT IS NOW SOLD OUT)

 

Within the print, Murphy has included background references to Henri Matisse, Vanitas Painting, Ancient Greek sculpture, and Piet Mondrian. As usual, the title is taken from a work of classic literature, this time from Lev Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina.


Creative Restlessness – A conversation between Benjamin Murphy and Kevin Perkins

Creative Restlessness – A conversation between Benjamin Murphy and Kevin Perkins

 

I was first made aware of Kevin’s work through social media and I was struck by his boundless energy for experimentation. Whilst undertaking this wild experimentation, his work retained a feel that was unmistakably his. I have exhibited, and exhibited his work a few times before our upcoming show A Long Way From Home (With Igor Moritz), and in each show he has exhibited a different form of painting. Each of these, however, are executed with an expert precision, whilst also displaying a wonderful expressiveness and economy of gesture. I decided to have a chat to him ahead of the show we did with him back in January, about his work, and his approach to making in general.

 

Kevin Perkins

Utilising the unusual medium of coloured pencil on salvaged book covers; the portraits depict (mostly) lone sitters smoking, drinking tea, reflected in mirrors or simply ‘being’ and certainly give the nod to a golden era of twentieth century European painting. The surfaces of the book covers themselves lend an almost canvas-like quality to the images, and also help to add a beautiful ageing affect to the colour. Through these works, Perkins continues to develop his excellent ability to reference and draw from art-history, producing nostalgic works that drip with both playfulness and charisma.

 

[Benjamin Murphy] – Firstly – why are you an artist?

 

[Kevin Perkins] – I originally started painting out of necessity. I got hired to teach high school painting classes with no real background in painting. I’d watch YouTube videos and read tutorials before every class and then make a demo of whatever concept I was trying to teach. That turned into a real practice. I was looking at a massive amount of art and decided that I wanted to try and be a real artist, whatever that means.

 

I felt like an imposter for a long time. But now I guess I make work out of what I like to think of as a creative restlessness.

 

[BM] – Is this perhaps why you are experimenting so much within your practice?

 

[KP] – Oh yeah. Definitely.  I tend to have a hard time staying put in one specific approach to my work. I’m not really interested in creating the same kind of work over and over. I don’t care if that’s what sells, I make the work for myself, to fulfill a need that I have.

 

[BM] – I think the driving force for most artists is a need for experimentation, even if their work remains on a similar track. Where do you see your work going in future?

 

[KP] – I tend to not think about the future of my work. It’s a very in the moment kind of thing. Though I’m interested in moving into sculpture but haven’t had the space or time to figure out what that looks like for me.

 

[BM] – So where does your imagery come from?

 

[KP] – I cobble together images that I’ve found from my stockpile of old books, magazines publications, and photographs, as well as the occasional internet find, life drawings, and reimagining of master works. I don’t really seek out imagery for the work often. Instead, if I stumble across something that may work I’ll tuck it back until I’m ready for it.

 

[BM] – How in control would you say of how the paintings ultimately end up looking, do you have a ideal aesthetic in mind or is your process more experimental?

 

[KP] – The idea of an ideal aesthetic is something that I don’t put much stock in because it’s always changing. But to say that my work is experimental is reaching too far. Achieving consistency is not something I concern myself with. I produce work and it inevitably looks like my work. It may be influenced by someone or some thing that I’ve consumed but the way I apply paint, the rhythm of my hand, the energy will be evident in the work. It’s like writing letters. I don’t think about the way I write the letter “e” but if I write enough of them a pattern will emerge. In the same way, if I am true to myself and produce work that is a creative outflow of my interests, then patterns within the works will begin to form and an aesthetic that is true and uniquely mine will appear.

 

That being said, I do follow a similar process with the creation of most of my works. Which lends itself to a more consistent and specific aesthetic.

 

My drawings and studies are free and open to the whims of chance

kevin perkins

Kevin Perkins – book cover portraits

[BM] – With my work I aim to paint haptically, thinking as little about how I want it to look or what it means as possible, because I want it to mean different things to each individual viewer. Would you say that you paint in a similar way?

 

[KP] – Yes and no. I’m not so concerned about the outcome or what it means. I’d like for the work to look a certain way but that can range depending on where I am at mentally and emotionally as I’m creating the work. I make the work for myself. So to disassociate from the outcome for the sake of the viewer would be dishonest to myself and I feel that my work and my drive to make the work would suffer. I don’t care about the viewer so much. People will interact with and read into the work what they will and I’ve got no control over that.

 

[BM] – What are your intentions when you approach a canvas?

 

[KP] – I’m more interested in the creation than the outcome. Don’t get me wrong

though, the outcome is certainly an important aspect to it all. But once I’m done with the work I have no intention of returning to it. I’ve detached myself from the work. It’s served it’s purpose for me. I treat every painting like a puzzle. The enjoyment is putting it together. Once I’m done with that I could care less if it ends up in the trash or on someone’s wall. I suppose though that it’s nice to make a little money so that I can keep up the insanity of making work.

 

Maybe I’m being too honest.

 

[BM] – Yeah I can totally see what you mean, for me it’s all about the process. Once it’s finished and framed it feels almost as if it was done by someone else.

 

[KP] – So how do you feel about your most recent works, and did you alter your approach in any way knowing that this was a two-person show?

 

Yes I did. I was more open and free with my use of color. Igor has a beautiful sense of color and I guess my works needed a bit of a boost in order to stand in the same space as his.

 

[BM] – Is that the first time you’ve worked in this way?

 

[KP] – I feel like I’ve been edging toward it for a while.

 

[BM] – Can you tell us a little about the works you created for the show?

 

[KP] – I messed around with form a lot in this body of work. These paintings move in and out of refinement. Some of the work is incredibly unrefined, for example one of my self portraits was done in one take, drawn while only looking in the mirror and never at the canvas (blind contour). Another work, one of the nudes, was left as an unpolished charcoal drawing. And then there of course were more refined renderings in other works in the show.

 

The enjoyment for me comes in pushing the figures and the spaces that they inhabit beyond the norms of portraiture. Portraits are tricky, I’m never really trying to paint a specific person the way they actually look. I’m more considering the narrative around them and how that comes across in the work.

 

In retrospect, the paintings here emphasize the process, and the history, of how I work. As I stated earlier, I don’t like to think much about how someone may interpret the work. My interest in it lies in the development, the making of the works.

kevin perkins

Kevin Perkins – Book cover drawing

Kevin’s book cover works will be released as a catalogue via Kunst Katalog soon, follow their profile via the hyperlink for more details.

The other artist in our show with Kevin Perkins was Igor Moritz, read Benjamin’s conversation with him [HERE]

Originally published in AfterNyne Magazine.


Faded Glory – San Francisco

Our most recent show Faded Glory opened a few weeks ago in San Francisco at Book&Job gallery in the Tenderloin district. It was a two-person show with artists Benjamin Murphy and Nick JS Thompson, who although have collaborated many times before, have never done a two-person show together until now.

San francisco - faded glory

Below are some install shots of the show. Big thanks to the amazing Carson Lancaster for inviting us to host a show at Book&Job Gallery, and thanks to everyone who visited the show.

San francisco - faded glory

 

In 2018 we hosted Carson’s debut UK solo show Lost Coast, which you can see [HERE]

 

 


Mizog Art Podcast – Benjamin Murphy

One of our directors (Benjamin Murphy) was recently interviewed by Gary Mansfield on the newest episode of the Mizog Art Podcast. On it, he discusses his own work, as well as giving some insight as to why him and Nick JS Thompson decided to start Delphian Gallery.

mizog podcast

As well as this, he drops some exciting hints about the hotly awaited upcoming Delphian Podcast.

Listen to it HERE

For more interviews with the Delphian Directors, check out this one with Arrested Motion.


Faded Glory – Benjamin Murphy and Nick JS Thompson in San Francisco

Our next show Faded Glory opens next month in San Francisco!

This is the first fully-collaborative exhibition between artists and Delphian Gallery directors Benjamin Murphy and Nick JS Thompson.

Faded Glory - Benjamin Murphy and Nick JS Thompson

Faded Glory – Benjamin Murphy and Nick JS Thompson

Since 2012, the pair have collaborated in many ways, including founding the peripatetic gallery Delphian, which has gone on to have a string of sold-out shows since its inception in 2018.

Despite their long history of collaboration, Faded Glory will be the first time that the immensely different styles of work from the two artists has sat together in a way in which the works coalesce to form one coherent whole. The similarities enhance the differences, which allows the autonomous works to add to, and to contradict, one another in a way that enhances each through the union of both.

In this show, the paintings by Murphy will be hung atop, within, and below the photography by Thompson, so as to deconstruct the barrier between each.

The experimental curatorial style that is so synonymous with Delphian will make its presence known, as the two artist/ curators will apply their signature curatorial style to their own works for the first time. Faded Glory is a show about how the perceived differences between two separate processes can sit symbiotically, making the whole more than the sum of its parts.

The Exhibition opens at Book And Job Gallery in San Francisco on the 7th of February, and runs until the 13th.

To RSVP for the private view, please go HERE


More from Benjamin Murphy HERE

More From Nick JS Thompson HERE


Marina Abramovic’s Rhythm 0

Marina Abramovic – Rhythm 0

Words and illustration by Benjamin Murphy – Originally published in AfterNyne Magazine

In 1974, twenty three year old Serbian-born artist Marina Abramovic created the most poignant and shocking performance artwork to date. Rhythm 0 was a captivating social experiment, and one that has still not been surpassed 43 years later.

Gallery visitors were met with a standing but immobile Abramovic, beside her a table containing a plethora of seventy-two seemingly unconnected objects. Some were clearly intended to give pleasure: a rose, grapes, perfume, and a feather were included. Some others were more sinister: a whip, nails, a razorblade, scissors, a pistol, and a single bullet.

The audience was then asked to explore the objects and use them upon her body in any way they wish, whilst for the next six hours all responsibility for their actions was assumed by Marina.

Placed upon the table was the following text.

Instructions.

There are 72 objects on the table that one can use on me as desired.

Performance.

I am the object.

During this period I take full responsibility.

Duration: 6 hours (8 pm – 2 am)

At first, the crowd was sheepish and their actions innocuous, giving her the rose to hold and generally not doing much. After a while, mob-mentality took control and the crowd got more vicious. With tears streaming down her cheeks Abramovic stood immobile and stoic whilst her clothes were cut off (in a similar way to Yoko Ono’s Cut Piecefrom ten years before) and her neck was sliced with a razorblade. The man who cut her then leant forwards and placed his lips to the fresh wound and drank her blood. It left a scar that she still has to this day. She was touched in intimate places, and according to art critic Thomas McEvilley “…she would not have resisted rape or murder”.

In the post-apocalyptic dystopia we see so often in books and films, once state authority is removed society becomes feral and vicious.

One visitor put the bullet in the pistol and placed it in her hand pointing at her own neck, no doubt willing her to pull the trigger. At this point even the gallery staff thought the work had gone too far, and “went crazy”, grabbing the gun and throwing it out of the window. All the time Abramovic never moved.

She was picked up and carried to a table, placed upon it, and had a kitchen knife thrust between her legs into the wood of the table, in a symbolic gesture that symbolizes both rape and murder.

Abramovic’s ability to transcend physical and psychological pain through sheer mental strength is astounding, but it is not the main focal point of this work.

Marina Abramovic - Rhythm 0

What makes this work so frightening is that it took a simple absolution of guilt for this randomly collected cross section of society to resort to viciousness and disregard for human life. It calls to mind the Milgram experiment, in which volunteers were informed that they were required to electrocute another volunteer. The volunteers were unaware that the experimenter and the person being electrocuted were in cahoots, and any response to electrocution was staged. The confederate would be asked questions, and any incorrect answer was met with an electric shock – increasing in power for every subsequent shock.

In this experiment, the volunteer was absolved any responsibility, and therefore continued to obey the instructor, despite the obvious danger. Many of the participants showed visible signs of distress throughout, and were clearly complying begrudgingly.

It was an experiment to see if obedience to authority would overrule the volunteer’s conscience, and their natural fears for another’s safety. It questions whether the volunteers could be considered accomplices to the act, and was inspired by the trial of Adolf Eichmann in 1961, just three months before.

In Rhythm 0 however, not only did the viewers enact ‘real horror’, but they did so with relish. The audience was not acting under orders from an authority figure as they were in the Milgram Experiment, but were given the authority to act autonomously. In the Milgram experiment, most of the volunteers protested the instructions and showed many signs of extreme distress, but in Rhythm 0 they seemed to enjoy what they were doing.

One would expect that the participants would display reticence to act freely due to the Hawthorne Effect (the modification or dilution of ones natural behavior due to the knowledge that one is being observed), but this is actually not the case, as the participants showed an eagerness to experiment in ever increasing gradations of severity.

It is also possible that the absolution of responsibility allowed the spectators to play out some of their darkest fantasies. The symbolic hematophagy is suggestive of the participant assuming power or control over Abramovic, and asserting their dominance.

They saw Marina as an object, and they played with her sadistically like a cat with a mouse. They were also required to use their own creativity when deciding in which way the objects were used, and it is surprising how quickly they abandoned the safe objects in favor of the truly dangerous ones. The dehumanization that occurs is in part due to Abramovic’s immobility, in part due to her silence, and in part due to the acts of objectification enacted upon her by other members of the crowd. It is in part because the spectators saw their contemporaries enacting hostilities that they felt able to also.

She took some of the ideas originally explored just 13 years prior, and took them to their most extreme point.

Performance art is similar in many ways to theatre, but as Abramovic has shown there are some subtle but definite differences. Horror within the theatre is inauthentic, but at least in some cases, within performance art it is real.

In 1891 Oscar Wilde explored this topic in his essay The Critic As Artist.

“…Art does not hurt us. The tears that we shed at a play are a type of the exquisite sterile emotion that it is the function of art to awaken. We weep, but we are not wounded. We grieve, but our grief is not bitter.”

Almost a hundred years later, Abramovic proved this to be incorrect.

For more critique by Benjamin Murphy

Chris Burden – Dormant Chaos

Santiago Sierra – The Strangeness of Reality

Conversation with Billy Childish


The front cover of Navigating The Art World art business book by Delphian Gallery