Brendan Murphy

Brendan Murphy
Emotion, Formula, and the Poetics of Space

Born in 1971 in Indiana and raised in Providence, Rhode Island, Brendan Murphy now lives and works in Miami and Malibu. His path to art followed unconventional beginnings: first as a professional basketball player in Europe, then as a Wall Street trader in New York. After the events of September 11, 2001, he left the financial world behind and committed fully to his artistic practice, developing a distinct body of work across painting, sculpture, and digital media.

Murphy’s work fuses emotional immediacy with conceptual complexity. His large-format paintings often resemble blackboards: covered in equations, chemical symbols, psychological terms, hand-drawn sketches, and typographic fragments. Figurative hints meet abstract textures, forming a visual cosmos that speaks to both intellectual and emotional dimensions. Recurring motifs include fingerprints, chalk markings, physical formulas, and existential keywords like “Love,” “Desire,” and “Energy.” His materials range from acrylic, oil, gouache, and spray paint to chrome finishes, neon pigments, and glitter.

Since 2015, Murphy has also created monumental sculptures, most notably his “Boonji Spacemen” series. These futuristic astronaut figures appear as contemporary icons of humanity in the age of technology. Their mirrored surfaces, vibrant colors, and even diamond-encrusted finishes position them between Pop, science fiction, and luxury object. A 13-foot Spaceman was installed at Minute Maid Park in Houston; another, at 22 feet, is slated for the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. In parallel, Murphy develops digital versions of his sculptures as NFTs, bridging traditional and digital art worlds.

His work is held in over 600 private collections worldwide, including those of Serena Williams, Novak Djokovic, Warren Buffett, and Larry Page. Murphy’s art has been exhibited internationally at galleries and fairs in New York, Miami, London, Monaco, and Bogotá. His approach is both intuitive and methodical, resulting in a visual language that combines aesthetic allure with philosophical depth.