TRUE BLUE

When Anna Murphy sees a large exterior wall without windows, she imagines it as a canvas. In the last 10 years, she has emerged as one of Chicago’s preeminent muralists—something she evolved into after years of perfecting her craft as a traditional oil painter.

“Although much of my early training was in oil painting, I was always drawn to large canvases,” says Murphy. “When I painted my first mural, I fell in love with the monumental scale of it. I loved the huge blank canvas it provided, and how it would draw a large public audience. But what I loved most was that it created a relationship with the community. I get to leave a gift of my artwork within each community I work with, but in turn, I get a gift back in those relationships and lifelong friendships that change me as a person and influence my art. It’s a wonderful, and meaningful experience.”

Murphy moved to the United States from England with her family in 2002. “Although I spent many hours as a child painting with my grandmother, a wonderful watercolor artist, I really fell in love with drawing and painting at the very end of high school,” she says. “I received a full ride to college through the art program at the University of Louisville and decided to follow that path. After college, Chicago seemed to be a great place to grow as an artist and still be near my family.”

Within a week of moving, Murphy became a creative assistant for a successful Chicago artist. “I spent two years creating work and traveling nationally and internationally,” Murphy says. “I learned a lot about how to run a studio, how to make work, and how to design and install a gallery show. After those two years, it was time to make my own path.”

When Murphy decided to pursue becoming a muralist, she had to develop a new painting technique. “I couldn’t spend months and months painting the way I would with my canvases,” she explains. “Murals are large-scale paintings that need to be completed within a short period of time. My fiancé taught me a process he developed when he first began painting murals. The process is very similar to using watercolors—painting lots of thin layers on top of one another.”

On average, each mural takes Murphy about a month to complete— with weather always a factor. “Some take more time, some take less. One mural in Indianapolis, Legendary, was 60 feet by 80 feet with 43 portraits of Indianapolis legends. That one took nine weeks. I design my murals in Photoshop and project the outline onto the wall. Then I can begin painting.”

Murphy’s confidence as an artist grew with experience. “My first love in life was music,” she says. “I played piano and violin. I think that’s where I developed my patience and perseverance. It takes hours and hours to learn a song. I think I’ve always had that notion to just keep going, one day at a time. You don’t have to look at the finished product. You only have to look at what’s in front of you. That’s how I approach my projects.”

Murphy’s current body of murals is easy to identify as she works in a color palette of blue, white, and gold—colors inspired by one of her grandmother’s English tea sets. “I think there is a level of nostalgia there, from my childhood. I’ve worked with many communities, and each had its own version of this blue and white china. In Portugal, I saw gorgeous churches with blue and white tiles all around the walls and beautiful molded gold ceilings and fixtures. I just fell in love with that color palette, and I knew I wanted to incorporate that combination into my work.”

These colors have played well with Murphy’s use of dramatic lighting. “I feel like I’m trying to represent what heaven is like,” she says. “That bright magical light and how it hits the metallic gold. It makes the blue feel beyond human, imaginative. It offers a fantastical depiction of things while offering a feeling of serenity and connection. This colorway is one body of work, one chapter in my story.”

Many of Murphy’s murals—including I Dream in Blue, an art piece she completed in Highwood last summer—use faces as primary imagery. “I enjoy depicting faces,” Murphy explains. “There is something extraordinary about painting eyes. It’s like being able to reflect someone’s essence, someone’s soul. It’s a wonderful feeling to bring a portrait to life. That was my first obsession. Then over the years, I’ve brought in flora and fauna. But people have such a strong emotional reaction when they see a piece of artwork full of human emotion.”

For the last year, Murphy has begun turning her focus to developing monumental sculptures. “It’s foreign to work in this form,” she says. “But I’ve enjoyed pushing myself out of the box. As an artist, you always want to keep growing and challenging yourself to think bigger and outside of what is comfortable.”

Murphy is quick to credit her fiancé, Hector, an artist and fabricator, as being one of her best collaborators. “He’s a huge part of my growth and constant desire to move forward in my success as an artist and a person,” Murphy adds. “We’re always there to bounce ideas off one another.”

While life as a working artist isn’t without its challenges, Murphy embraces all that has come with choosing art as a profession.

“Every day is different. Every project is something new,” she says. “When I get to create, I get to connect with that divine part of myself. It’s a spiritual experience. And through the work that I make, I want to move people to connect with that divine part of themselves. I believe an artist’s work reflects their inner world. My job as an artist is to feel as beautiful as I can inside so that I can share that beauty and inspire others to feel beauty inside themselves.”

For more information, visit annapmurphy.com or follow @annapmurphy.