Union Gallery hosts local sculptor’s work

For the past two months, Chapel Hill sculptor Dan Murphy has been on a “creative binge.”

His studio — located on Chapel Hill’s Spring Lane — is overflowing with metal sculptures.

“They just keep pouring out,” he said.

A collection of Murphy’s designs are currently on display in the Union Gallery until March 2.

The sculptures, which are made from silver- and gold-colored stainless steel, were all made by Murphy in different decades.

“I get my inspiration from many places — just bending metal freely, or making a sketch,” Murphy said. “Just last week I even woke up in the middle of the night with this vision in my head that I’m going to try soon.”

The length of the creative process varies with the size and scope of the project at hand, Murphy said.

“Sometimes it can take half a day, and other times it can take up to several weeks,” he said.

A Chicago native and former competitive swim coach, Murphy stumbled into sculpting by accident while in graduate school.

“I was going to law school at UNC and had this 7-foot-long scrap of metal in my house that just kept staring at me,” he said.

“So, one day I started bending it into shapes, and that became my first sculpture.”

The unique names for Murphy’s sculptures — like “Chaos at Bloomingdale’s” and “You’re My Best Friend.” — are not always planned.

“Sometimes I find the titles beforehand, and sometimes it’s weeks after I’m finished with them,” he said.

While displaying his art at a Raleigh gallery, Murphy met Sean Kiernan, art gallery committee chairman for the Carolina Union Activities Board. The two quickly decided that Murphy’s work was perfect for the Union Gallery.

Though Murphy has not had any formal art training, he was chosen for appreciation of emotions that art can provoke.

“He gets that not everyone is going to understand art, but if a student can look at something and say, ‘Oh, that looks cool,’ then his art is affecting someone,” said Tyler Mills, CUAB president.

Murphy said that, though his shapes are abstract, they hold meaning with him.

“The trick is to get to a point where I’ve got something,” he said. “It’s both everything and nothing.”

Both Mills and CUAB art collection committee chairwoman Sheridan Howie said they have tried to include a variety of art mediums in the gallery this year.

“The Union wanted to feature an artist that creates more 3D art, because the last few have been very 2D, like photographs,” Howie said.

This is not the first time that Murphy’s art has been displayed at UNC. He previously showed a sculpture collection in the Union Gallery in 1984.

“It was cool that on his application he said his art was displayed 27 years ago in the Union, so having him back was somewhat historical,” Mills said.

Murphy said he is going to continue his creative binge and see where his sculptures take him.

“I like just starting with a simple shape, then bending it and adding stuff to it until I’m like ‘Eureka!’” he said.

Contact the Arts Editor at arts@dailytarheel.com.