GREGORY MALPHURS ARTIST STATEMENT
I paint to disrupt certainty.
Growing up between two opposing worlds—strict control and complete freedom—taught me early that truth can be dictated in one place and lived in another.The tension between what we’re told to believe and what actually feels true showed up early, and it never left me.
My work lives in that space.
Not offering easy answers but deliberately obscuring them. Building tension by giving you just enough to recognize something, but not enough to feel certain.
When you stand in front of one of my paintings, you’re not just looking at it—you’re participating in it. The work acts as a mirror. What you see says as much about you as it does about the image itself.
Approval isn’t the point. The reaction is — how you interpret what you’re seeing, what you project onto it, what you recognize.
Collectors often say the work stays with them long after they’ve walked away. That it changes over time. That what they saw at first isn’t what they see now. That’s the point. The meaning isn’t fixed—it evolves as you do.
I’ve been making paintings for over 30 years. And my work is held in private collections across the United States, Europe, South America, and Australia. Recently I’ve been a top-selling artist on Rise Art.
Collectors return not just for the work itself, but for the experience of living with it—the way it continues to reveal, challenge, and reflect. This isn’t art that resolves itself. It doesn’t decorate a space. It holds tension inside it.
I live and work in Joshua Tree, California.
@gregorymalphurs
+1 (214) 769-9738