Artist Bio and Statement Draft 1

Artist Bio

Kaela Murphy’s practice is multidisciplinary, incorporating sculpture, drawing, and printmaking as she responds to unsolicited touching and uncomfortable conversations that she faces as a multiracial woman. Having been raised in Regina, and now residing in Lethbridge as she completes her final year of the BFA program in Studio Art at the University of Lethbridge, Murphy’s lived experience has been one of confrontation often centered around and filtered through her hair. Through her work Murphy establishes and addresses boundaries that are regularly crossed by those who exoticize and objectify her.

Artist Statement

My work responds to the unsolicited commentary and physical interactions I have experienced with the people around me concerning my ethnicity and physical appearance.  In response to regular questioning about whether or not my hair is real, what my background is, and whether or not I am enough of one ethnicity or another, I call attention to how central my hair is to the way others identify and value me through my use of hair as material.

I have spent a large portion of my life wanting to be wanted, doing anything I could to try and fit in by making my hair straight, my skin lighter, or removing all the dark hair that grew on my arms and legs.  I am interested in the societal pressures to conform to white-centric beauty standards set by the beauty industry and the effect that they had on my identity and sense of belonging.  In my work I examine how the removal of facial identifiers and engaging mainly with hair affects the viewers interaction and reaction. I am interested in the different reactions of wonder while my hair is on my head, and disgust once it has shed. 

I am particularly interested in the work of Karin Jones, whose work explores identity and race through fine craft, weaving hair in geometric patterns with hair as a tool to examine the intricacies of identity and gaze. I am also interested in the works of Eva Birhanu who makes use of her own hair along with synthetic extensions in her exhibition Intricacies of the Gaze in collaboration with printmaker Khadijah Morley at Riverdale Hub in Toronto. 

Like Birhanu and Jones, my current work in progress makes use of synthetic hair knotted onto a plastic mask molded from my mom’s face painted a uniform beige, removing any resemblance to skin tone. This work is largely in response to my mother’s insistence that I’m not black, I’m just her with a bit of a tan. These comments and questions trigger me and I feel the need to constantly defend and justify my existence to both strangers and those close to me.