Strange Fire

Q&A: Margaret Murphy

By Keavy Handley-Byrne | May 27, 2021

Margaret Murphy (b. 1990, Washington, D.C.) received her BFA in Photography from SUNY Purchase College in 2013. Murphy has had her work exhibited across the United States, including exhibitions at Multiple Exposures Gallery, Alexandria, VA; Texas Photographic Center, Houston, TX; Center Gallery, Wichita, KS; Paradice Palase, Brooklyn, NY; Latela Gallery, Washington, D.C.; and in numerous online group shows. She currently resides in Los Angeles, CA while she completes her MFA from Hartford Art School.

Keavy Handley-Byrne (KHB): The first question I have for you is about using different techniques to create distortions. Manipulating your body in physical space, using in-camera positioning and devices to refract light, using filters and post-production. How do these things intersect for you? Are there places where you’ve used more than one? How do you decide to use one technique over another?

Margaret Murphy (MM): It’s definitely intuitive. I think that photography itself is a medium of dimensionality. You have layers upon layers: the artist, then the camera, then the subject — so you’re always kind of divided into these planes of sorts. I think that this planar thought process, facets, dimensions is the closest thing that photography can do to humanizing itself. And because we’re multi-dimensional beings, multi-faceted beings, there’s layers that images lend themselves to reflecting.

That’s a lot of words that might not make any sense, but I like to think — I think a lot about this thing I read once, that you exist in an infinite number of selves. Every person you know knows you as they see and understand you. That means hundreds of versions of you exist out in the world that you will never know, and that you have your version of yourself that you understand, that no- one else will ever know. 

This ‘singularity of being’ idea is bullshit. [ laughs ] I think that what I do in the images that I’ve made is try to tap into those versions of self — trying to understand how far does Margaret exist? How many times over am I replicated? And can I access those versions of me? You could argue that the work is extremely narcissistic, and I think that titling it Margaret — as it stands right now, it may change, this is of course not finished work — but I think it’s okay to consider the sort of demonizing and scolding of millennials as narcissists when you have people like the Romantics, like Walt Whitman - where they were just circle-jerking self reflection for like, decades. 

KHB: Totally, I agree with the circle-jerk assessment.

MM: Yeah, this isn’t a new concept. One of my favorite anecdotes is that people hundreds of years ago would commission really really detailed and flattering portraits of themselves and hang them up in their homes, you know? Like, how is this much different? How is a memoir any different from a selfie, or an instagram feed that has pictures of you?

KHB: In past generations, people have turned a lot to the family photo album and vernacular images to place themselves in the world somehow, in a past that they might not fully remember, but which is recalled by photographic imagery. Your instagram kind of functions in this way in my mind — a cross between a personal photo album and a personal documentary project. There’s a memoir-album feeling that’s constantly growing, because there’s no physical space restraints, since it’s a digital archive. 

MM: Right. I guess I think of it as like a form of preservation in some way, where I’m memorializing myself as I live. Which is somewhat morbid, but also kind of fun. A lot of people wonder what their funeral will be like, “what will people say about me when I’m gone?” I think about that a lot. 

KHB: Again, a total literary reference — Tom Sawyer attending his own funeral!

KHB: Right — how much are your past experiences and the tangential experiences of others influencing the way that you make, and how does your making influence future experiences of others? I think that’s a worthy question. I wanted to circle back about a couple of images that reference untidiness, or dirtiness in some way — the cockroach picture, spitting the coffee into the glass, the decay of the roses. I’m interested in those images and what they say when reflecting off of images where you’ve idealized yourself and your body. Is that practice, of the untidy images as intuitive as the practice of making images of yourself?

MM: Yeah. I think it’s important to have opportunities for us to explore. Your mind is where you can think any thought, and nobody has to know. Sometimes those moments — I want to see them in an image. The process is like lily-padding. I find this cockroach in my house, perfectly preserved. I’m not freaked out — because I’m not scared of bugs — but I know how bugs can elicit such a visceral reaction from others, so what if I just put it in an image? A lot of it aligns with the idea of pushing boundaries — what can I get away with? How far can I take things? That’s definitely a part of my artistic practice. I don’t want to get into a place where I’m cutting myself off from trying anything and everything in my art. I think some of my best images have come from there. 

It’s a lot of ‘what if.’ What if I didn’t exist anymore? What if I got in my car and started driving and didn’t stop until I ran out of gas? A lot of those pictures, I think, are embodiments of that kind of thinking. I also think sometimes I try to reflect a state of being. Another image that people often point to is the one with the eyes — am I trying to look back into my own head? Is there a way I can somehow become even more self-reflective? Or am I just so done with seeing everything outside myself, looking at these same four walls and my belongings, my own face — that I want to look elsewhere? 

I think it’s really great that we’re talking now, and not when I’ve finished the work — I think a lot of people could gain a lot from mid-process thoughts and ideas from other artists, so we wouldn’t feel like we had to show only what’s polished and finished. This is a nice kind of memoriam to when I had less clarity than I hopefully will in four months. [ laughs ] 

I wanted the sequence [below] to start a dialogue within the pictures themselves. The cockroach image is an older one, made over a year ago, and when I started making self-portraits I wasn’t sure that picture would have a place in it. But it becomes more interesting when paired with the images where I use my body as a prop, and inanimate objects become figural. They all rely on each other. 

KHB: There’s a kind of embodiment with the objects you’re photographing, and an objectification of your body itself. There’s this push and pull between where does body start and end, and where does object start and end. To your point about talking about this in the ‘middle’ of the process of putting this book together, it speaks about that uncertainty of existence. It’s a very existential body of work, that kind of doesn’t have a beginning or end, but also does. Knowing where things begin and end is something humans want out of a narrative — beginning/middle/end, rising and falling action — with your work, I feel like I could start at any point, and that’s the beginning, but whatever you choose to start me off with affects the way that the rest of the images are viewed. 

MM: Yeah. That’s something I’ve heard before about my work, and something worth revisiting as I continue making this work. None of these images are made with a narrative in mind — they’re all just kind of fleeting. I’m drawn to things that can’t be explicitly expressed, more sensory, things felt rather than thought. Maybe it’s my Pisces Moon in my 12th house. [ laughs ]

KHB: I’m publishing that. [ laughs ]

MM: That’s fine! But, my Capricorn ass wants to know the beginning, middle, and end, wants to know the spoilers and cheat codes. And then my Pisces side is like, we don’t get those, we don’t have them! So like, let’s just exist in this space! And I think that’s what the work does, too — invites you in to just smooth-brain it for a while. No thoughts. Or all the thoughts! Whatever you want! But ideally, I would say I don’t want the work to be too explicit ever. I want you to understand a sense of feeling, of loneliness or being lost, but being completely fine with it. 

KHB: That’s the sensation I get when I look at the images. And there’s some great tension between images where there’s a present sense of discomfort, and ones where there’s comfort. There’s a sense that you’re daring me to be comfortable with the images that, when I think about the experience of the subject, are uncomfortable. 

We’ve talked before about the idea of muses, about women in photography — or, more accurately, women in photographs, how women’s bodies are used, and then the body of work is used, to try and encapsulate a whole person, when it never really can. The bath picture is challenging in this way — there’s this beautiful soft light, there’s bubbles, there’s water, your hair is mermaid-y — and then you’re looking out of the picture like, “what are you doing here?” I wonder if you could talk about that a little bit — to put a fine point on it, how do you feel making work about yourself and using yourself as muse/subject has been influenced by the historical canon of photography, which is so heavily dominated by white straight male perspectives? 

MM: I saw this TikTok recently — you should publish this — that was like, “does anybody else find themselves just chillin’, and then suddenly become aware of the man living in their head, who says, ‘you don’t look hot’…?” That one hit home pretty hard for me. You’re minding your own business, and the man in your head telling you that you’re ugly. And it’s interesting — I’m not sure Gen Z is getting this feeling as much as millennials are. We were maybe one of the last generations to experience that kind of normalized misogyny in pop culture. I’m acutely aware of how I’m perceived at all times. And it started from a really young age. My parents would tease me about how I’d never met a mirror I didn’t like, that I would get distracted from conversations by my own reflection. I think that came from a desire to be aware of myself, to be able to see myself at all times, knowing I was being perceived. 

Before the Internet became ubiquitous, women were often being photographed and captured by others, with some exceptions. With the rise of social media, of the internet the way it exists today, all of a sudden everyone needs to be the arbiter of their own identity and representation. And that can be equal parts empowering and utterly terrifying. You want to make sure you’re being authentic while also being palatable; you want to be sexually desirable but not too sexual, because that would be ‘shameful’. All of that stewing in your brain for decades is so… As I’ve gotten older, I think I’m more able to let it go, or channel it, partly through this work. I think a lot about eye contact — how if you didn’t want a man to talk to you, you wouldn’t make eye contact with him, but as soon as you do, you’re inviting him to speak to you. That’s what we’re taught, anyway, growing up. How does eye contact and direction create a relationship, or challenge one, between viewer, artist, and subject? I’m eager to explore that as I keep looking at what I’ve made. How can I destabilize or enliven the viewer?

A woman making eye contact directly is seen as uncomfortable. People don’t know what to do with it.

KHB: In American culture specifically, but I think in global culture as well, there’s this idea that when a man is assertive or makes decisions, he’s a ‘boss,’ empowered, whereas when a woman does those things she’s a bitch. This work makes that tension visible in some places — where you’re letting go of that man in your head telling you that you ‘don’t look hot’. You’re embracing an awkward position or uncomfortable feeling and recording it in such a way that you’re not just experiencing the discomfort, but asking the viewer to experience it. 

MM: It’s hard — I think especially in the art context, people are conditioned to see women in a certain way. When I started showing this work, a lot of the commentary was, “you look too done-up, you look too polished — where’s the ‘real you’?” And my argument would be, that is the real me. I identify as someone whose brows are perfectly done, hair perfectly coiffed, who looks absolutely snatched in every way. I don’t identify with the version of me that’s frumpy and greasy. I think there can be a fetishization that comes along with the way we picture “real” women, some of which you see in the body-positive movements taking place online right now for better or for worse. I feel that we need to get to a place of neutrality. 

I had a really visceral reaction to those comments, that this wasn’t the ‘real me’ — my battle was, how do I feel like I’m not just giving into what’s expected, or what I perceive as being expected of a woman making work about herself, with herself as subject. There’s not really a photographic history of women making pictures of themselves looking hot, but there is one of them looking ‘undesirable’ or ‘real’ and raw.’ I didn’t want to go that direction, since it felt disingenuous. As a woman in a larger body, there’s a tendency for larger women and femmes to only be seen as desirable if they’re hyper-feminine, as a result of patriarchal beauty standards. 

I’m grasping at where I really feel most at home — and there are pictures I’ve made of myself in this body of work where I do feel at home in my body, that could fall into either category, ‘raw’ or ‘done up’. In Sweaty, I’m laying on a comforter and the shadows of the blinds are on my face, my hair is falling, there’s this late day light… and I don’t feel like I look beautiful or ugly there, I just feel like I look. And that’s me. I think it’s intriguing — there’s mystery there, there’s ambiguity.

KHB: Some of your images have a really particular cinematic quality to them, where you’re using the angle of the camera and the inability to see the subject’s face. You’re using these filmic tropes, the dutch angle, where things don’t totally line up, setting the viewer on edge by tilting us, and then repeating the strategy by tilting your body.

MM: A colleague of mine told me that that spread made them very uncomfortable, because things weren’t lined up. Like, yeah! [laughs] 

KHB: And in the other picture of that scene, I found it hard to tell what side of your body was facing the camera. There’s something interesting that happens there where you’re showing me something about the self that you feel you are, or one of the selves you feel you are, without caring whether or not it sets me off balance. 

MM: When you’re shooting in a space long enough, you think you’ve run out of ideas and ways to photograph. My apartment is 700 square feet. But then, you move the camera six inches to one side, you change the tripod height just a little, and you see something different. I wouldn’t say that I necessarily intentionally made those angles, but I was responding to them. The rose itself has its own range of motion, too. There are all these angles, so hard-lined, and to then get this slight curve, this gentle bend to one side. I think I identified with that rose, which is why I then went to sit next to it. It’s just a picture of two roses, you know? [ laughs ] 

KHB: How do you see the future of this work? Is it something that might go on in perpetuity, or that might be finished when you make a book?

MM: I’m honestly not sure. I’m still deciding how much of this work is about me, and how much of it is about me in this space I’m living in. I’ve taken pictures outside and they haven’t really held the same kind of weight. With everything being so up in the air as the pandemic goes on, not knowing if I’ll stay in California, I’m just not sure. And I think that’s okay! Ultimately I think it’s foolish of me to try and make work that’s about feminism or feminine sexuality — this work is inherently going to talk about those things. You told me a long time ago that the personal is always political, and that’s something I think about a lot, how inherently any pictures I make will bring that into it, especially since I’m the subject. There’s going to be a lot of conversation had about ‘the body,’ sexuality, intimacy, isolation, self-reflection… all of those things will just be there.

Perhaps the work could continue, but would be a different chapter. I think a lot about Marianne Müller’s Part of My Life, which was a huge inspiration to me. She made that work over eight or nine years, and there’s an interlude in the book where the work goes outside. And then it brings her back inside, because the outside world is scary and uncomfortable, and she just wants to go back to her little home.

It’ll be interesting — before quarantine started, I was photographing other people, in these same sorts of positions and setups. I think that there could be a really interesting offshoot as things change, people get vaccinated, things go ‘back to normal’. That would be an interesting variation on the work. 

But, truthfully, I want to make like, fuckin’ giant 4x5 black and white landscapes after this. 

KHB: [ Laughs ] Yeah!

MM: Like, don’t make me look at myself anymore. [ laughs ] Just kidding, I love myself.

KHB: There are some voices in the art world that react negatively to work about womanhood that doesn’t center an ideology, but rather centers existence — that’s been on my mind as we’ve been chatting. 

MM: Yeah — The way I see it, I’m not the authority on feminism as an ideology, but I do have experiences as a woman. I think it’s an important distinction. I can only speak on my experience as a large-bodied slutty girl, but I’m not the end-all be-all of womanhood. I don’t want to speak for anyone or on behalf of anyone else — just on my own behalf. When someone says that they think I’m playing into stereotypes about women — I don’t necessarily think that it’s a harmful stereotype. I have friends who reject the idea of the docile feminine, because it conflicts with who they are as people — whereas I’ve seen it work to my advantage. I don’t think that it’s wrong to revel in qualities and characteristics that were placed upon me, that I’ve grown to love, and that I see in other people who I admire. To gate-keep how people can express themselves was the exact intention of the patriarchal structures that created these expectations. Once we allow and celebrate those expressions, the conversation is no longer about who digests that expression. I grapple with my desire to be desirable a lot. It probably won’t be resolved in the work, but I think it’s present, that fixation on desire, on the value that desire can implicate. 

This wasn’t really much about art, was it? [ laughs ]