September 20 – December 15
Artist Reception: Friday, October 23, 4–7pm, Walkthrough and remarks at 6pm
Location: Law Warschaw Gallery, Fine Arts Commons 105, Janet Wallace Fine Arts Center, 130 S Macalester St, St Paul, MN
The largest solo exhibition to date by artist and Meg Lionel Murphy, Deliver Me is a reverential feminist manifesto for the empowerment, healing, protection, and resilience of women and all who experience gendered violence.
“Picasso famously said that women are either doormats or goddesses. My work plots the path from the doormat to the goddess.”
Working across painting, drawing, doll-making, installation, graphic design, and textiles, Murphy blends traditional painting with visual storytelling to explore survival, healing, identity, joy, and transformation. Drawing on the tradition of medieval devotional images, her work conjures a faraway land called Manica Deprica, where violence transforms femme bodies into monstrous forms, forcing their pain to be seen, felt, and reckoned with.
Meg Lionel Murphy is a Wisconsin-based artist whose evocative paintings have been exhibited in galleries and museums nationwide. Her recent solo exhibitions include Ecstasy & Escape At The Swan Song Motel at MOWA|DTN (Milwaukee), Traumatica Dramatica at The Untitled Space Gallery (New York), Interior Violence at Co Exhibitions Gallery (Minneapolis), and solo booths with SPRING/BREAK Art Show in New York and Los Angeles. Her work has also been featured in group exhibitions such as 10 @ 10 at The Wisconsin Museum of Art, Pleasure Garden at Laurie Shapiro Gallery (Los Angeles), and In Her World at Voltz Clark (New York). A recipient of the Gener8tor Art Grant and Accelerator Program, Murphy’s artwork has been acquired by the Minnesota Museum of American Art and featured in publications including Hyperallergic, Artnet News, Bitch Magazine, Forbes, and The Untitled Magazine, among others. She completed her undergraduate studies in art history, fine art, and English at the University of Minnesota, while co-founding beloved art and literature journal Paper Darts (2009 to 2019). Murphy lives with her partner and toddler in Madison, where she currently teaches at the University of Wisconsin–Madison while completing her MFA in Painting. She is represented by Portrait Society Gallery, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.