Jemima Murphy: Eden

Kutlesa is pleased to announce Eden, an exhibition of new works by Jemima Murphy, opening at our Switzerland gallery on June 12, 2026. Developed during a period of profound personal transformation, the exhibition presents the artist’s practice in a vulnerable state, where colour, gesture, and material sensitivity converge in works that feel emotionally charged and psychologically open.

The paintings emerged through the artist’s ongoing exploration of green gold — a colour historically associated with divinity, sanctity, and motherhood in Renaissance painting — following an initial inspiration drawn from imagery of the Annunciation. What began as a formal investigation gradually became more instinctive and personal, with gold appearing throughout the works as both an emotional and symbolic presence.

Created during her pregnancy, the works move between luminous and restrained surfaces, balancing moments of fragility, intensity, and calm. Layers of electric pinks, blues, greens, yellows, and earthier tones shift across the canvases in compositions that remain open, fluid, and emotionally responsive. Works such as Gold Perennial and Garden Untamed reflect this tension between heightened color and quieter introspection.

She approaches painting through an intuitive process of layering and revision, allowing each work to emerge gradually rather than from a fixed composition. The resulting paintings possess a diaristic quality, tracing emotional and personal transitions with a striking sense of urgency and immediacy.

While firmly rooted in abstraction, Eden remains closely connected to the body and to ideas of transformation and vulnerability. Through colour and atmosphere, Murphy creates paintings that hold instability and beauty in delicate balance.