Introducing New Artist: Billy Murphy

This week, we’re diving into the absurd world of Billy Murphy – a British contemporary artist accruing legions of fans around the world with his charming animal art that pokes fun at the absurdities of our modern world.

 

2024 has been quite the year for Murphy. In just a matter of months, his social media following has sky rocketed from just 1,000 followers to over 110 thousand. And we can see why. Murphy creates delightful, uplifting and laugh-out-loud daily artworks that provide a much-needed antidote to the darkness of our current news cycle.  

We’re delighted to be welcoming Murphy to Enter Gallery and to celebrate his arrival, we’re releasing his exclusive print, You Must Accept the Frog, which is available now.

We had the pleasure of chatting to Murphy to discover the inspirations behind his work, the personal journey that inspired him to pick up a paintbrush, and the Japanese philosophy that informs every painting.

View artworks by Billy Murphy

 


Meet Billy Murphy

As someone known for artworks of frogs on scooters and exasperated bears lamenting the 9 to 5, it might come as a surprise that Murphy’s first foray into the working world was as a biomedical science graduate and maths teacher.

However, as someone impacted by long-term chronic pain, the school environment ended up becoming too much for Murphy. It was when he started tutoring from home that he freed up more time for drawing.

 



At first, Murphy started sketching on his iPad, but following a life-changing operation in 2022, he found himself able to sit at a desk for longer, and that’s when he decided to pick up a paintbrush for the first time. 

Nowadays, Murphy is prolific. In just four short years, he has gone from creating digital works to painting multiple artworks in one sitting. It was only in 2023 that he started selling his art. And now in 2024 (the same year he and his wife welcomed their first baby), Murphy has enjoyed his first solo show in London, and is now joining Enter Gallery, which he reveals is something of a full circle moment…

 

“I lived in Brighton when I was at university. It’s where I met my wife, and we actually always used to come into Enter Gallery to have a look around. Everything has moved so fast over the last couple of years. It’s all a bit surreal, especially as this has always been my dream gallery to be in.”

 

 

Badly Drawn Bears

Having always enjoyed drawing, when Murphy needed to take his mind of the pain he was experiencing, it felt natural to turn to art. His artistic career started when he decided to set himself a simple daily drawing exercise: find a funny picture of a bear, draw it and post it on his Twitter account, Badly Drawn Bears.

 

“My whole art career has sprung from what was essentially a drawing exercise designed to get me drawing every day. It would be the thing that got me up each morning, especially waking up in pain - you need something to get you going. I’d stick what I drew online and it built from there.”

 

While bears are said to symbolise everything from strength and courage to passion, protection, love and resurrection, it was something far simpler that drew Murphy to this animal. He reveals:

 

“There’s loads of really complicated things I could say here about what drew me to bears, but the reality is that I just like them. They’re quite human but also a little dog-like. Almost a cross between the two. Regardless of whether I’m trying to make them relatable to people or just to be just a humorous vessel for a message, they end up being a fun and happy way of doing it.”

 

 

Bear-faced Cheek

Murphy is right, there is something distinctly human about his bears, particularly their expressions and existential angst. Although simple, each portrait is alive with relatable emotion that we often see in the mirror or in the eyes of our friends. Murphy explains how he brings his bears’ emotions to the canvas:

 

“Bears have this kind of vacant expression that I can change really easily. I can make them look happier, sadder, or dumber by moving their features around. I can get a lot of emotion into something simple and do it in my style, so people know that it’s my work. My plan was just to start drawing the bears, start playing around with them and soon people would identify them as something by me.”

 

Given Murphy wanted his bears to be what defined his style, we couldn’t help but wonder whether his bears are autobiographical. Should we really be calling Murphy’s favourite character Billy the Bear? He reveals:

 

“Oh yes. I often think of him as almost like a caricature of myself, because a lot of my ideas come from what I think or say or experience. I made one piece with the bear in a set of dungarees with the statement, ‘I thought they made me look cool’. That’s about me becoming a Dad and trying to find a new style, which didn’t end up being anywhere near as cool as I thought it would.”

 

 

Positive Motivations

According to Murphy, his paintings tend to fall into one of three categories; relatable, wholesome or completely absurd. Whatever category, every painted artwork is designed to make the observer feel something other than the intense sense of doom that comes from scrolling on social media. Murphy tells us:

 

“I initially put my drawings out there as a bit of positivity. I’ve always wanted my work to provide relief from social media, which can be such a horrible place. My motivation is to put out stuff that’s just different and refreshing from the spews of shit that end up on social media.”

 

“I’m just trying to get us all to laugh. Even when it comes to more serious subject matter I’m trying to get people to view things in a lighter way because we’ve all got bad stuff going on, and we’re all just trying to get through it. Humour is one of the best ways to ease anxiety. It’s good to laugh!”

 

 

Animal Friends

While Murphy’s true love remains the bear, he has also branched out into other animal friends, whether that’s frogs, birds, dinosaurs, or even the internet’s current favourite baby hippo, Moo Deng. He tells us:

 

“I’ve always liked animals more than people. We’ve got an array of animals around us in our home - a dog, a cat and a tortoise, and sometimes you look at them and you can’t help but be amused. They’re so expressive and funny. We have a Cavalier Charles Spaniel who always looks sad or frantic looking. He’s not. It’s just his face. I like seeing the expressions on my pet’s faces and then trying to pair them with other animals. Some animals are just funnier than others. Frogs are hilarious.”

 

Accept the Frog
Speaking of frogs, the exclusive print we are launching with Murphy is You Must Accept the Frog. This limited edition print is based on one of the first artworks Murphy created of an animal that wasn’t a bear. He tells us:

 

“The idea just popped into my head one morning. I thought it was a funny idea and decided to draw it, assuming it would only get 10 likes. It was a big surprise when it really took off. I particularly like my more absurd artworks that make people laugh and think, ‘what are you on about?’

 

Wabi-Sabi

Looking at Murphy’s paintings, it’s the imperfections that really draw your eye and make you fall in love with the characters. Murphy reveals that this is one of the things he loves most about working with acrylic paint and a simple brush…

 

“When you do things digitally, you can make it perfect. When I paint, I mess up all the time, but I just leave it in. This approach is in line with the Japanese philosophy of ‘Wabi-Sabi’ which is the idea of imperfection being perfect. It’s the idea that if you look at a tree, every single leaf is different, but every single leaf is perfect. Perfection isn’t all straight lines – it’s the imperfections that make us love the things we love. That’s why I still paint with a brush. I like the wonky lines.”

 

You Must Accept the Frog is available exclusively at Enter Gallery now. 

View the collection by Billy Murphy