T.C. Murphy was born in Walkinstown, County Dublin in 1953. He went to school in Drimnagh Castle which he left at the age of 16 to take up an apprenticeship in the jewellery trade with Irish Diamond Jewellers. After four years he became restless and travelled to Denmark. Here he worked initially as a cutler, then became a forester and even spent some time labouring in a steelworks. It was during this period that T.C. began to paint.
He subsequently moved to Christiana, an experimental commune south of Copenhagen, where he devoted himself to his art. He spent four years in the artists' colony and sensing a Celtic impulse coming through his work, he returned to Ireland in 1988 to get closer to his roots.
He has participated in many group exhibitions since his return to Ireland, alongside solo shows including a one-man sell-out exhibition at the Apollo Gallery. T.C.'s work was also showcased in the popular NBC show "Lipstick Jungle" (from the makers of Sex and the City).
His palette is especially uncultivated, though no innocent artist would have chosen such psychedelic greens, reds and violent purples. His influences are numerous, which is not an amateur characteristic; they have been selected by sophistication. The Danish artist Asgen Jorn and Edward Munch have been a major influence, and inspiration also comes from the Cobra School of North European painting. Newgrange, an Irish heritage site, is a particular influence in T.C.'s work; this can be seen in his use of both curvilinear symbols (circles, spirals, arcs, dots in circles) and rectilinear symbols (radials, parallel lines, chevrons). All of which are found carved in the Neolithic passage tomb of Newgrange.
His spiky manner of painting, his colours, Murphy's celebratory images of the cosmos and interest in the subconscious guarantee a vibrant canvas.
T.C. Murphy was born in Walkinstown, County Dublin in 1953. He went to school in Drimnagh Castle which he left at the age of 16 to take up an apprenticeship in the jewellery trade with Irish Diamond Jewellers. After four years he became restless and travelled to Denmark. Here he worked initially as a cutler, then became a forester and even spent some time labouring in a steelwo... Read Full Bio
