Benjamin Murphy: Lavish Entropy
Lavish Entropy is Yorkshire-born artist Benjamin Murphy’s fifth solo show. Born in 1988, Murphy is now based in London, and exhibits globally. He holds both a Bachelor’s degree and a Master’s degree, specialising in Contemporary Fine Art. Career highlights include
Exhibitions: The Saatchi Gallery, Beers Contemporary LDN, Subliminal Projects LA. Charity Exhibitions: The Serpentine Gallery, Sotheby’s, The Houses Of Parliament, The Wallace Collection.
Much of the work in Lavish Entropy is inspired by classic literature Murphy read as research for his first play Flowering Desolation, completed in early 2018. Literary Modernism and French Naturalism were of particular importance, and especially the works of Marcel Proust. Lavish Entropy opens on the 10th of July, which would have been Proust’s 147th birthday.
Much of the work is created in Murphy’s signature style, that of painting using only black electrical tape on glass. As well as this, Lavish Entropy will exhibit for the first time together his stitched paper drawings, ceramics, 3D tape drawings, and a single page from Flowering Desolation.
The title Lavish Entropy is synonymous with the title of Murphy’s last UK solo show Gilded Chaos, which was inspired by a phrase from a Baudelaire essay at Beers Contemporary in 2016. The works from this show follow on from the last, building upon their opulence and hints of disaster.
Quickly following the close of Lavish Entropy, Murphy will be exhibiting at The Saatchi Gallery for a second time, showing a screenprint of one of the key pieces in Lavish Entropy.