Eric:
Regarding your style, Is that a way of drawing you always felt drawn to, or is that something that developed over time? 

Stella Murphy:
I've been thinking about this – because what excites me is trying something new. I like experimenting. If I see something – and it happens all the time – I'm like: “Oh my God, I'm really drawn to that. I want to feed that into my work.” But then I also know that it's my full-time job now. I'm aware people are getting to me for the sort of style that I've developed until now. 

I feel like for myself, I still want to push my style and want to develop, but at the same time I believe, It's a lot about finding a balance. You can't just get rid of all the stuff that you've worked up to. But yeah, it's still changing basically.

Eric: It's always hard to find that balance between: This is what I'm hired to do, and this is what I like. You quickly get put into a box people. It's a constant: “How can I open up that box?”

Stella Murphy: I guess that's not how it works, right? That's why you've got to do personal stuff. I’m realizing right now that I need to focus on that stuff as well because that's where you can experiment. It's where you can try out stuff that maybe you wouldn't be able to do commercially.

It's both me but I feel like it's too soon to say, this, is it. This is exactly what was always buried inside of me. It's still evolving. Hopefully, I can do this for my whole life. I just don't want to box myself in. I feel like I haven't quite arrived. It's a process, isn't it?

Eric:
It is! Maybe we can actually go a little through your process until this point. And take a look at your work. How did your work evolve in the last years? Can you narrow it down to specific things or do you feel like it's a very abstract process? 

Stella Murphy:
I guess it's been always influenced by my surroundings. But especially after I graduated - about seven years ago now - I was working a gallery job where I was pretty much just invigilating. I was just watching the artwork. That was a period where I had a lot of time for free drawing and stuff. That was nice because I didn't have any pressure. I had my job and was drawing for the sake of drawing. So that's when I started getting into narrating stuff because there simply wasn't anything going on. *laughs*

And again in another part-time job working at a vintage poster shop that specialised in Art Deco posters. I was picking up graphics elements, like angular bodies and compositional, feeding that into the work.

Now it's a weird one because I'm full-time. It really has been quite commercially focused. I'm aware that there's still more that I want to do but it's hard because I am financially dependent on it. I have to force myself to try out stuff. To experiment, in order to keep myself relevant and first of all keep it exciting for me.

Eric:
While I was scrolling through your Instagram I noticed these really distinct patterns. The clear focus to a vanishing point. 

Stella Murphy:
*Laughs* Yeah, I'm not planning it, it's just how my brain works I guess when working out how it all fits together. Like hat should go there and that should go here. But at the same time, it’s nothing new using a vanishing point to create harmony. It’s just probably why the drawings get better because I'm actually working out to draw properly and it’s unifying my work.

Eric:
It’s interesting you said: “unifying”. Is that something you are actively striving towards?

Stella Murphy:
Yeah, I'm trying to manifest it I guess. I do want to do an exhibition at some point or just like a book. I haven't done that in full colour yet. I've created so much work over the years and only recently I started keeping them all in one place. I have a folder now and when you look through it -  it's actually quite a lot. It's nice to see.