Aileen Murphy's third exhibition at Deborah Schamoni in Munich, titled "Sleeps on the Ceiling," presents five new paintings dominated by rosé and pink tones. The works revolve around a table-like motif, featuring animals, disembodied limbs, and surreal details such as a white cat with red eyes and a yellow snake. Murphy, who completed her studies in 2018, blends abstract gestures with detailed figuration, creating scenes that are both playful and uncanny. The exhibition's title is borrowed from Elizabeth Bishop's poem "Sleeping on the Ceiling" (1946), reflecting a dissolution of domestic interior, urban monument, and psychological landscape.
This exhibition matters because it showcases Murphy's evolving practice, where she pushes the boundaries of representational painting by merging refined figuration with abstract, gestural strokes. Her work engages with the medium's capacity for seduction and imagistic oddness, inviting viewers to explore hidden realities and the underside of domesticity. As a Berlin-based Irish artist gaining recognition, Murphy's exhibition contributes to contemporary painting's dialogue between abstraction and figuration, and highlights the role of galleries like Deborah Schamoni in supporting emerging voices in the art world.