John Yau blogs about the work of Catherine Murphy on the occasion of the exhibition Catherine Murphy: Two Subjects – Forty Years, curated by Portia Munson, at the BYRDCLIFFE Kleinert/James Center for the Arts, Woodstock, New York, on view through August 11, 2013.

Yau writes that Murphy "is uncompromising in ways that I admire, which is to say she is not dogmatic. Always in hot pursuit of what she sees — subjects so commonplace and underfoot that other painters working in a parallel vein would not think of looking at twice — her subjects have become more memorable to me as the years pass: a balloon floating against the ceiling of a girl’s bedroom; a bathroom sink half full of water, with hair floating in it; a dirty tablecloth; a hole in the ground; a paint spattered studio floor; a cut-paper snowflake taped to a windowpane; a window at night, surrounded by Christmas lights. In these and many other paintings and drawings, Murphy transforms the bedrock bleakness of our daily life into something unforgettable."