"The canvas is but the medium for expressing the mood of the artist, thus making it a living thing," Murphy begins. "I see a landscape very much as I see life, as an ever-challenging experience. The world around us is always changing. My native New York Cityscape, in particular, envelops my senses. A damp, overcast day can soon become a melody of gentle pastel colors against the gray-green sky or a bluish haze produced by the soft rain on the river. Later, the sun bakes through and produces a symphony of light and color so we look at the same scene with a renewed sense of excitement. This ever-changing aspect of our environment is the artist's palette of emotion, that to the casual viewer is just a passing, everyday experience. The artist sees it as the very excitement of living."

Murphy’s work has been recognized through acquisition of one of his cityscapes by the Museum of the City of New York. He has exhibited at the Manhattan Athletic Club Gallery, the Michael Ingbar Gallery of Architectural Art and the Chuck Levitan Gallery in New York, as well as at Rochester Big & Tall in New York and Denver. He is represented in collections in the United States, Ireland and the UK. Murphy, a graduate of Yale School of Art and Architecture, studied painting with Josef Albers.