For artist Murphy Stamp, making work often begins with confronting the things that are hardest to describe. Their piece There Are Monsters Nearby explores childhood trauma through a language that many people recognise from early life: the invention of monsters.
When frightening experiences are difficult to process, children often give them shape through imagination. Monsters become a way of describing fear without needing the vocabulary to explain it. Stamp’s work reflects on this instinct, revisiting past experiences from the perspective of adulthood.
The composition is deliberately arranged to resemble a crime scene investigation. Photographs appear as fragments of evidence, carefully placed as if documenting something that once happened. In this way the work becomes an act of looking back, examining memories that were once overwhelming and trying to understand them with distance and clarity.
Over time the piece has also taken on broader meaning for the artist. As a disabled person navigating modern systems and institutions, Stamp has become increasingly aware of how society often views the human body through the lens of productivity and efficiency.
This awareness now sits alongside the personal narrative of the work, linking individual experience with larger social structures that shape how bodies and identities are perceived.
The process behind the piece is as carefully constructed as the concept itself. Stamp combined special effects makeup techniques with silkscreen printing to build the imagery. The project began with the creation of a latex mask, which the artist photographed while wearing. Those photographs were then turned into transparencies and used to create the screen printed images.
Every part of the work was made by hand. The base sheet was tea washed to create a worn, organic surface. The printed images were produced on delicate mulberry paper before being hand sewn onto the base.
The stitching plays an important role in the final piece. It visually suggests the act of repairing something that has been broken, echoing the emotional process of trying to put oneself back together.
There Are Monsters Nearby developed slowly over more than three years, becoming one of the most personal projects the artist has completed. The extended timeline allowed the work to evolve alongside Stamp’s own understanding of their experiences.
Murphy Stamp is a queer, disabled Irish artist whose work focuses on uplifting the voices of ordinary people while exploring personal and political realities through multiple creative forms. After spending years working in different roles within the film industry, they shifted their focus toward printmaking and have spent the past four years developing their practice in the medium.
Through their work, Stamp aims to highlight social injustice and the ongoing struggles faced by working class communities while sharing deeply personal experiences through visual storytelling.
Artwork Details
There Are Monsters Nearby
Silkscreen print on mulberry paper, hand dyed and hand sewn
10 × 11 inches
Project completion time: over 3 years
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