Jana Astanov interviews Kiley Murphy
Featured artwork: Kiley Murphy, Windshield in memory of Jacquelyn Blaise Salteralla, 2022.
CREATRIX Magazine: What made you become a metalsmith?
Kiley Murphy: I was living at a music commune called Earphoria in Austin, making leather accessories. In the process I researched metal fasteners, rivets, ect., trying to problem solve closures and was able to find solutions until I needed to solder the metal together. Hawkeye, Naserine’s dad who I was an after school aide for, worked at a metal foundry. I got my friend a job with him welding steel and making cool structures and he would show me and I’d think it was the coolest thing. The idea of accessories was put on the back burner for a bit, as I took time to travel to Rosendale, NY and applied to school at SUNY New Paltz. This is where I took basic metal with Myra Mimlitsch-Gray and realised a world of contemporary jewellery exists.
CXM: What are some of your biggest influences, early and current? How do you think it has affected your work?
KM: Corrina Goutas, Otto Künzli and Yoko Ono’s work inspires me in different ways. Otto Künzli shows me what conceptual work can be with the use of metal as a medium. Goutas’ pieces make me feel like any object can, and should be considered. While the vulnerability and charisma that exudes from Ono’s performance pieces inspire me to wear my heart on my sleeve as an artist.
CXM: Can you talk a bit about your process in regards to creating Miss Dior Cherie?
KM: Miss Dior Cherie synthesised from the amount of grief, fear and heartbreak because I lost my best friend and soulmate, Jacquelyn Blaise Salteralla. I needed an outlet for this pain and I needed to put this energy somewhere. So, in the process of trying to navigate how I am going to live without this person was able to be worked out in metal, and ideas and intuition. Miss Dior Cherie’s self-titled piece is a memento mori and the first piece that served as an epicentre for the rest of the work. Miss Dior Cherie stems from a memory of her childhood bedroom–that when revisited as a memory now, elicits comfort, mess and despair.
CXM: What is the best piece of advice you’ve received as an artist?
KM: I had an interview with a representative from Central St. Martins and they were talking about ideas and boundaries, then they asked how I navigate them as an artist. The optimist in me said, “Well there are no restraints because anything is possible.” Looking back there is truth to that statement. However, through making I’ve realised boundaries and parameters aren’t the antithesis to creativity– however parameters exist to make plans and goals within art and life more attainable.
CXM: What are your future art plans?
KM: I want to make gender neutral, conceptual, ready-to-wear, industrial body jewellery/clothes and sell them through my depop, Data Ethics. My other project is called Agar Gypsum which is my music alias. Performing live is definitely on my mind. I’m currently living in New Paltz, New York and I plan to travel as much as I can and then continue my studies in glass.
About Kiley Murphy:
Kiley Murphy resides in upstate NY continuing their work in metal, music and fashion with focus
on her brand Data Ethics. Exploring where these mediums intersect is part of their intuitive and
curious approach to their craft. Kiley contrasts “trash” and the overlooked by embellishing the
industrial and found.
Artist statement:
The pieces in Miss Dior Chérie are cathartic expressions of grief and visual
representations of the United States mental health system today. The mesh, the grid, is
the net that should support us from falling. Lines intersect and the structure reinforces
itself. Its essence is foundational—it is the framework of a building laid in cement. Yet
seeing metal exposed points to deterioration and decay. I highlight this contrast through
the careful application of embellishments like beads and stones upon overlooked
objects. I assign meaning to discarded fragments of the mundane by concretizing them
into art jewelry.
About the interviewer:
Jana Astanov is an interdisciplinary artist, a writer, a poetess and an independent curator born in Mazury Lake District of Poland and currently living in the Shawangunk Mountains, in upstate New York. She is a founder of CREATRIX Magazine: www.creatrixmag.com, portal for creative expression focused on art, activism and spiritual practice. Her work includes performance art, photography, sound art, and installation. Together with her partner Niko van Egten she co-created an electronic music group ASTRALOOP featuring her poetry in dark electronic arrangements. She is also the author of five collections of poetry: Antidivine, Grimoire, Sublunar, The Pillow Book of Burg, and Birds of Equinox.
