Ciarán Murphy

GRIMM is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of new paintings by Irish artist Ciarán Murphy, on view at the London gallery from January 15 to February 28, 2026. This will be the artist's second solo exhibition in London (UK) and his first in the gallery's new London location. 

Ciarán Murphy’s paintings engage with the entanglement of technological and analogue modes of image-making. Negotiating an infinity of found images, Murphy splices together various source materials, allowing for chance encounters and incongruity to coalesce and collapse seemingly distinct subject matter into resolved compositions. In doing so, he examines and disrupts the dichotomy between original and copy, in favour of painting a blend or ‘mutation,’ asserting the painted medium’s capacity for verisimilitude; its ability to more accurately capture an atmosphere or sensation through approximation rather than direct mechanical reproduction. 

About the Artist

Ciarán Murphy received his BA at the National College of Art & Design, Dublin (IE) in 2003 and his MA in Visual Arts Practices (MAVIS), IADT, Dublin (IE) in 2005. 

Solo exhibitions include this appear, GRIMM, London (UK); Solid Gone, GRIMM, Amsterdam (NL); Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Butler Gallery, Kilkenny; The Model, Sligo and Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin (IE); there, there now, GRIMM, Amsterdam (NL); Hundreds of Nature, GRIMM, New York, NY (US); Plainsight, GRIMM, Amsterdam (NL); A Round Now, Taymour Grahne Gallery, New York, NY (US); The Paradise, Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin (IE); All That’s Air Melts Into Solid, GRIMM, Amsterdam (NL); Ciarán Murphy, Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin (IE); March, Mother’s Tankstation, Dublin (IE); Ciarán Murphy, Cerealart, Philadelphia, PA (US); and Ciarán Murphy, Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago, IL (US).

His work is in the collections of the AzkoNobel Art Foundation, Amsterdam (NL); the Arts Council of Ireland, Dublin (IE); The David and Indrė Roberts Collection, London (UK); Defares Collection, Amsterdam (NL); Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), Dublin (IE); MOVE, Amsterdam (NL); Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar (NL) and Sanders Collection, Haarlem (NL) among others.