Brian MurphyOn Location & in the Studio

Last summer I was fortunate enough to spend a couple of weeks traveling around the Netherlands with family. I instantly fell in love with the landscape, the light, the buildings, and the architecture. I found beauty all around including the history and the people who live there and their way of life.

I love returning to St. Thomas to visit. To me, the island has the same beautiful qualities and more.  Visiting these places is inspiring. They are like fuel for my inner artist and these paintings are the result of that.

I had a lot of fun working on this group of paintings. I took inspiration from sketches and gouache studies as well as photos and trying to keep things fresh and loose with interesting compositions. In the studio, my biggest fear is overworking a painting (which is hard to do when painting on location). I want to resist the urge to add more details and try to get my message across with as little information as possible.