A North Carolina Artist

Traces of the
American South

A deep interlocking of architectural sensibilities and skills, often focusing on spatial organization and composition with an attention to context and social underpinnings.

Nostalgic Structures with a Sense of Belonging

Gallery Coming Soon

Preferring to paint from life, Murphy Ayala often begins her process on site to fully engage her senses and unfurl her artistic instincts. These works take the form of small gestural paintings capturing the fabric and nature of the place, observing context with an interest in cultural underpinnings. Once back in the studio she creates larger scale works exploring the assemblage of elements such as patterns of light, shade and shadow, dominant colors or features that make a building or structure otherwise notable or identifiable.

Murphy Trogdon Ayala is known for her evocative rural slice-of-life oil paintings.”

Murphy’s understanding of space, shadow, and light provides the foundation for her work. As a nod to her previous career in architecture, structural arrangements in the rural and urban landscape are often her choice of subject matter.

Meet Murphy

Expressions from the Mahler Fine Art Gallery