Ruan Murphy is a London-based printmaker currently taking part in Nurturing Talent, Create’s development programme for emerging artists. Ruan began printmaking as a pastime and an outlet during a difficult period but over time, it has inspired their career.
Now, Ruan (they/them) continues to develop their creative practice and is training to deliver creative arts projects in community settings on our Nurturing Talent programme. They are also one of two Nurturing Talent artists sponsored by Anthropologie, and as part of this sponsorship, they will assist Anthropologie’s design team in the design and setup of their Christmas window displays.
Here, Ruan shares their thoughts on community, advocacy, and their experience on Create’s Nurturing Talent programme.
“I first became a printmaker during a particularly bad period in my ongoing journey with chronic illness. Due to my heath I had to drop out of studying anthropology at University and was spending a lot of time at home.
“While I have not had any formal arts education and consider myself to be a self-taught artist, I owe a lot of my knowledge to a family friend who taught me a lot about printing when I was first starting out. We were both struggling with different health challenges and printing with him is one of my favourite memories from a very difficult time in my life.
“While I enjoy experimenting with lots of different visual arts mediums, printing is the medium I feel most at home with. I enjoy the very embodied process of printing and find it quite freeing as a medium – you never know quite what will come out and every print has its own quirks and imperfections.
Once I have carved my printing block and rolled ink onto it, I then use a large metal or wooden spoon to hand burnish the print onto paper or fabric. The main reason I started using this method is because I did not have access to any professional printmaking presses or equipment and found that using a spoon produced the best result when printing in a more DIY way at home.
[Image caption: The first print Ruan remembers making, aged 8 or 9. Ruan says “It features a house and three blobs… one of which I think may be a bird?”]
Art can be a very powerful tool in fighting against systemic inequalities, challenging oppressive narratives, and amplifying the voices of marginalised communities.
“I am drawn to lino due to its ability to produce and reproduce bold and striking imagery, often leading to its use within social movements and as a way for marginalised groups to make themselves seen and heard.
“I believe art can be a very powerful tool in fighting against systemic inequalities, challenging oppressive narratives, and amplifying the voices of marginalised communities. By using my work to explore different social issues, I hope to inspire critical conversations and community building and encourage people to rethink their perspectives.
“As a gender-queer, neurodivergent and disabled artist, I am also starting to tentatively explore my own lived experiences and the broader social contexts they exist within. Through this, I hope to not only work through my own experiences but also contribute to larger conversations that challenge stereotypes, celebrate diverse identities, and helps others find belonging and community.
It is such an amazing opportunity to get to learn from other incredible artists and work with groups I’ve never had the chance to work with before.
“In constant conversation and in many ways inseparable from my individual arts practice, I am passionate about creating art collaboratively with others and have facilitated participatory projects and workshops in a range of educational and community settings. As someone who proudly makes wonky art, I always actively encourage this in workshops and try to facilitate activities which inspire experimentation and freedom from ideas about what is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ art. I particularly love running collaborative workshops where many people contribute to making something together.
“I am currently participating in Create’s Nurturing Talent programme, a year-long traineeship for emerging artists, which supports them to run art workshops with marginalised and under-served groups. So far, I have assisted with projects in an adolescent psychiatric unit, with young carers, and with young people from refugee and migrant backgrounds.
“It is such an amazing opportunity to get to learn from other incredible artists and work with groups I’ve never had the chance to work with before. I am really looking forward to working on more projects over the next six months and using everything I have learnt to develop my own cross-arts workshops.
[Image caption: The piece of work Ruan is most proud of. Two large scale collaborative prints, which were made in early 2023 as part of an arts festival in Blackburn. The prints were lovingly decorated, carved and hand-printed by 400+ people over one weekend.]
You can learn more about our ongoing partnership with international lifestyle brand Anthropologie here.
Our Nurturing Talent programme gives six emerging artists each year the opportunity to work as supporting artists on a range of our projects, attend professional development training days and work in pairs to design and deliver their own workshop in a community setting. Each artist receives a bursary; and collectively they support hundreds of workshops across the year.