A Visual Language of Thought: The Art of Brendan Murphy
Brendan Murphy's infamous abstract paintings and sculptures
Brendan Murphy’s works blend abstract and figurative styles to create iconic and emotionally engaging works. His paintings and sculptures ask to be read as much as they are seen, unfolding like visual thought processes rather than static images. Dense with equations, universal symbols, and poetic language the multilayered art operates as an open system for logic, intuition and emotion to coexist.
Murphy’s work steers away from a clear narrative or singular meaning, but instead focuses on inquiry. A moment of thinking captured in motion.
Brendan Murphy’s works can be presented as chalkboards or notebooks; surfaces layered with marks, ideas and visual interruptions. The words and symbols sit alongside expressive brushwork that creates a rhythm, mirroring the accumulation of thoughts and how they can be overlapping, contradictory and complex.
This style invited the viewer to create their own relationship with the art work. Instead of an explicit answer the audience is forced to navigate meaning for themselves tracing connections between image, text and form. In this way, Murphy’s practice aligns closely with the experience of thinking itself: nonlinear, curious and exploratory.
A theme which underpaints Brendan Murphy’s work is his fascination with universal systems: mathematics, scientific notation, language and symbolic codes. These elements are not used to explain or solve, but suggest structure within complexity.
By incorporating these symbols which are often associated with logic and order, Murphy contrasts them against expressive, often intuitive mark-making. The tension between these two messages reflects the broader human condition: the desire to understand the world rationally while navigating it emotionally.
His work does not attempt to place you in one mode of thinking over another. Instead, it proposes that meaning emerges somewhere in the in between.
One of Murphy’s most recognisable motifs is the spaceman figure, often rendered as a reflective or sculptural form. While instantly legible, the figure remains deliberately open-ended. It could suggest exploration, isolation, optimism, or introspection. It depends on how you, the viewer, interpret the work.
In a contemporary context, the spacemen reads less as a symbol of conquest and more as one of contemplation, a solitary figure navigating the vase unknown. When positioned in Murphy’s broader visual language, it becomes a metaphor for human curiosity and the ongoing search for understanding in an increasingly complex world.
Brendan Murphy’s work isn’t just visual density, but its generosity. Viewers are not required to decode every symbol or reference to find value. Instead, the work rewards time, attention and curiosity, allowing each encounter to unfold differently.
Seen through this lens, Murphy’s work is about encouraging people to embrace uncertainty, complexity and find pleasure in thinking visually.
At Art Angels his work sits alongside a global conversation of art that values ideas as much as aesthetics. It is art that invites viewers to linger, ask questions and reflect.
What do the symbols and text in Brendan Murphy’s artworks mean?
The symbols, words and numerical references in Brendan Murphy’s work are intentionally open-ended. Murphy often draws from universal systems such as mathematics, language and science to suggest structure, while leaving interpretation up to the viewer. Meaning emerges through engagement, not instruction.
Why does Brendan Murphy frequently use the spaceman figure?
The spaceman has become a recurring motif in Murphy’s practice as a symbol of exploration and introspection. While it references humanity’s fascination with discovery, it is less about space travel itself and more about the internal experience of navigating the unknown. This allows viewers to project their own ideas around curiosity, isolation, ambition or wonder.
What’s the message behind Brendan Murphy’s artworks?
Rather than communicating a single, fixed message, Brendan Murphy’s artworks explore ideas around thinking, curiosity and how people make sense of the world. His use of symbols, text and structured forms reflects systems such as language, science and mathematics, while the expressive elements introduce openness and ambiguity.
Murphy creates space for individual interpretation, allowing meaning to develop through observation and personal response.