Mirror Mirror: Graeme Murphy

Graeme Murphy AO (b. 1950), choreographer and dancer, was the co-artistic director of the Sydney Dance Company for three decades. At fourteen he was the youngest male dancer to be accepted into The Australian Ballet School in Melbourne; he commenced with The Australian Ballet three years later and choreographed his first ballet, Ecco le Diavole, in 1971. After dancing with the Royal Ballet in England and Les Ballets Félix Blaska in France, he was appointed artistic director of the Sydney Dance Company (then known as The Dance Company NSW) in 1976, helping it to become one of Australia's most successful dance companies. In 2001 Murphy was presented with a Helpmann Award for Body of Work: A Retrospective. Murphy retired from the Sydney Dance Company in 2007 after creating a repertoire of more than 50 works. Over the years he has also created productions for companies including Opera Australia, The Australian Ballet, Shanghai Ballet and the Metropolitan Opera, New York. Murphy continues to direct and choreograph productions, including Turandot (2019) and The Merry Widow (2021) for Opera Australia.

In this portrait of Murphy, Paula Dawson AM combines an antique bronze mirror with holography, a medium for which she is recognised internationally. In the reflection is Murphy's frozen and three-dimensional figure. The result of close collaboration between Dawson and Murphy, both decided on Murphy’s pose, which was then scanned with a laser. This digitised information was used to sculpt a wax figure and generate the hologram itself.

Purchased with the assistance of funds provided by Ann Lewis AM and the Basil Bressler Bequest 2004
© Paula Dawson/Copyright Agency, 2023