Photo: Museum of Wisconsin Art - wisconsinart.org
"Vacancy" by Meg Lionel Murphy
"Vacancy" by Meg Lionel Murphy
The colors are bright, almost blindingly so, and the imagery a rich fantasia of feminist themes. However, the paintings’ content is not political, but personal as enormous female figures loom over the classic small motel, shown as a respite rather than a road stop. It’s a style of children’s art, perhaps, but one that deals with anything but childish themes.
“Ecstasy and Escape at the Swan Song Motel” is the first solo show by Door County artist Meg Lionel Murphy and is admittedly a powerful one. It’s also the latest Museum of Wisconsin Art exhibit to grace its downtown Milwaukee gallery at Saint Kate – The Arts Hotel (through April 7). The connection between content and gallery, perhaps unintentional, supports one of the exhibit’s many thematic elements, Murphy says.
“I grew up in a small, classic motel owned by my parents in Sturgeon Bay,” says the artist, whose parents now own three such properties in the area. “The familiarity plays a significant role in my work.”
In Murphy’s case, the motel serves as a respite for women trying to escape from extreme domestic violence, something about which the artist has firsthand knowledge. Murphy suffered abuse at the hands of her first husband, escaping to motels as a respite and a step toward self-preservation. Small communities often don’t have the resources to maintain separate domestic abuse shelters, she says, and respite is another role such motels play.
In the universe of Murphy’s paintings, the female figures loom large to represent how much they’ve grown beyond the degradation and brutality they faced at the hands of others. The characters’ progress from image to image is less linear than it is episodic, illustrating how such progress rises and falls in real life. The bright colors and childish perspective of the characters signal a sort of rebirth for the women who have conquered and grown beyond their situations.
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Healing, Defiant
“The color is very healing and also a bit defiant,” says Murphy, who once illustrated a children’s version of The Bible to earn enough money to escape from her abusive first husband. “I like things that are surprising.”
“Meg’s work is truly compelling because it contains multiple layers of meaning,” says MOWA’s curatorial engagement fellow Brianna Cole, who curated the show. “The major themes at work in this exhibition include pregnancy, drama, social justice, healing from trauma, and escapism. All of them relate to a larger theme of experiencing PTSD resulting from intimate partner violence.”
As her art shows, Meg Lionel Murphy’s journey back from her own nightmare has been a positive one that has born positive fruit for her as an artist and a woman. In fact, you could say that the journey has come full circle. On February 5, she gave birth to her first child, Lewin, and now has the time and space to experience motherhood – along with her personal freedom – safely and without threat.
“I hung the show while extremely pregnant and two weeks after the opening I had my baby,” the artist says. “Now I have gone through this amazing transformation.”
If there is a more appropriate metaphor for the show and the artist’s life, it has yet to show itself.
