Step into painter Hannah Murray’s seductive, unsettling world

There is something uncanny, and seductive, in Hannah Murray’s work. The figures in her paintings are almost familiar to us – we may recognise the house in which they sit, the folds of their velvet jacket, or a baby balancing on a hip, but the faces give us pause. Murray’s works are populated with figures whose proportions are more than a little off.

‘It is quite a natural thing for me to do,’ says Murray when we speak over Zoom to mark the opening of her current exhibition at Ginny on Frederick in London. ‘I am interested in the idealisation of women, and the way that women have been painted. I'm leaning into it and examining why images like this can stir up anxiety and discomfort in people. In the world that we live in, women are starting to take on these kinds of qualities, with bigger eyes and atmospheric skin. By giving so much detail to some elements, and then drawing back on the texture on skin, it does add a surreal feeling.’

London-born Murray, who studied at the New York Academy of Art, works from photographs of friends, but the portraits take on their own, subversive life beyond the limits of direct representation. ‘In the paintings, friends become unrecognisable. I don't know if it's subconscious that the eyes get bigger, but eyes have always been the most important part of a portrait for me. They hold so much emotion and feeling. A lot of the time, the women in my paintings are surrounded by so many micro decisions that they've made – nail colour, the outfit – they're usually quite distant. I'm interested in what’s going on behind that surface level.’

Murray’s interiors recall the rich domestic worlds of the Dutch golden age of painting, with colours and patterns brought to sumptuous life in rich oils. ‘I'm trying to do things that I relate to, and I’m in my thirties now – interiors are part of my world. It’s fun to kind of play with them, and make a set where the women become characters. Each painting has such a different atmosphere.’

She finds inspiration everywhere. ‘I’m constantly taking photos. I love looking at Italian villas, homes in the UK, Pinterest. I never plan where the figure will be in advance.’

A sense of hyperreality throughout lends a feeling of unease to immaculate homes in Murray’s works. Fractured light, playing on unpredictable and blurred surfaces, creates dreamy or nightmarish backgrounds for the exaggerated femininity of the figures. ‘I want it to be subtle. I'm not interested in irony for its own sake. I want the softness and the beauty to feel honest, still. It's a perfectionism that's not quite attainable – it adds to that unsettling feeling.’

Hannah Murray, 'Charm', at Ginny on Frederick until 10 April 2026

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