“Fools For Lust,” Mary Katherine Murphy

Article Projects Realform Space
2008-05-01

It's the little window that could. For any one walking the central stretch of Bedford Avenue these days there's a jewel box of a display that you'll want to take a moment and enjoy right in the heart of the 'Burg. Using gold leaf and mad magenta shag carpet, Mary Katherine Murphy has painstakingly transformed this scruffy little show window into a fem-fantasy, complete with strappy high heels, bronze angel wings, and a grouping of pictures that depict various examples of today's “Glamour Girls”. These subjects seem tailor-made for Murphy's loose yet confident style. Her ample curving brush strokes accentuating features like overly plump lips and huge gazing eyes. “Orchid” (2008) a smallish piece features a head in three quarter profile that seems to inflate against the margins of the canvas. The “Orchid”, behind her ear, and the gaudy earring contrast against a face that, notwithstanding its bobbed nose, has a form that appears as ample as a Mycenaean fertility goddess. Despite a superficial “beauty”, these ladies, with their blank stares, seem about as deep as the paint they're fabricated with.

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