Official launch Thursday 23 July, 6 – 8pm

Sharon Murphy is a visual artist working across photography, video and installation. Drawing on a background in theatre and influences from psychoanalysis and magic realism, she delves into theatrical settings, capturing moments of quiet and stillness. Through recurring symbols such as curtains, deserted stages, and performative environments, she investigates the thin line between illusion and reality, presence and absence.

In Western art history, ‘mise en abyme’ is the technique of placing a copy of an image within itself. Murphy uses this concept as a metaphor to investigate the boundaries between real and fictive spaces, concentrating on recurring motifs of theatre curtains, outdoor carousels, circus tents, performative sites, city parks and empty stages. This work addresses the essential nature of photographic seeing, performance, and Freud’s notion of the uncanny where the familiar becomes suddenly strange and disconcerting through a play between presence and absence, evoking both enchantment and a pang of unease.