Gregory Malphurs

Gregory Malphurs is an American painter, born in 1966, who lives and works in Joshua Tree, California. Portraiture provides a starting point for his exploration of identity and uncertainty. His figures are disrupted through colour, competing marks and fragmentation, creating images that remain recognisable while resisting a settled reading. His Artsy biography describes a concern with human complexity and the shared experience of struggle rather than a literal reproduction of appearances.

On his official website, Malphurs connects this approach to a childhood shaped by opposing experiences of control and freedom. Painting becomes a way to question the gap between received beliefs and lived experience. He asks viewers to take an active role: what they recognise, infer or project into an image contributes to its meaning. The work is intended to remain open over time, revealing different associations as the viewer changes. His Mask series makes the distance between private identity and public presentation especially explicit. Mask No1, an oil on linen from 2024, belongs to this body of work. Malphurs reports more than thirty years of painting and private collections in the United States, Europe, South America and Australia. Studio 54 Fine Art lists his Mask, Ghosts and Chair works on Artnet under the shortened spelling Gregory Malphus.