BY DIANE SEMBROT
This post originally appeared HERE.
If you’re like us, you were living your life blissfully unprepared for a pandemic. Now months in, it still has ways to confound us. Turn to the artists to express what we cannot understand, much less articulate.
“Inspiration for my work is exploring how we process emotions, the internal struggle that is shared by everyone,” says artist Brendan Murphy. A contemporary artist, his works are in more than 600 private collections and galleries around the world. “My work is vivid. Thought-provoking. Layered. The aim is to provoke the viewer, helping them to be present and in tune with their emotions.”
He is pairing up with Gallerist Jennifer Haviland of Haviland Reed. She and Murphy met at
an art fair seven years ago and went on to collaborate on several showcases, exhibitions and exhibits. Now, they are both faced with Covid-19 restrictions and closures of traditional art gallery and museum spaces. Undeterred, they found a new way to share art with a public, especially because of the chaos and struggle of our time.
Rather than go online to share art collections or host a virtual event, Haviland instead decided to exhibit art in a safe way. “The exhibition deserved to be received and seen in real life,” she explained. In the old Westport Library, at One Main Street, she wrapped the walls of a space in white cloth to create the look of a tent for the exhibit called, 96% StarDust. The quiet space leaves one to focus on the art and what it taps in one’s emotions. The show’s themes include the “power of positivity and color to shift emotional state,” according to press materials. “As we are moved inward into our innerspace, Brendan Murphy understands the urgency for new understandings about ourselves and the world around us.”
Although we are separated these days, and even in this exhibit, Murphy’s collected works offer us the chance to remember our connections.
His work will be on view until January and appointments through Haviland Reed are recommended.
See more at havilandreed.com and brendanmurphyart.com.
