Stella Murphy

Stella Murphy is a London-based illustrator whose character-led drawings sit somewhere between the surreal and the nostalgic. Influenced by everything from 1800s caricature etchings to the liberated imagery of the 1960s and 70s, she creates ‘internal’ scenes that feel slightly off-kilter yet full of personality.

Her bold colour choices heighten this sense of playful distortion. Favouring vibrant, deep 70s-inspired palettes - dark yellows, rich reds and unexpected clashes - she relishes making work that you “aren’t sure if it’s hideous or appealing.”

Murphy’s illustrations appear across magazines, album covers and personal projects, and she is increasingly exploring how her work crosses over into music and comic art spaces.

Do you feel like your characters have lives outside of the page?

They do, in the sense that everything that I am drawing is from maybe a conversation, or something I've picked up. There’ll be someone’s voice, a particular accent or something that I’ve heard, and it’s all in there. I’m quite a quiet person, so I am always picking up on other people’s conversations, and so in that sense the characters do live outside of the page because it’s probably someone I’ve been eavesdropping on.

What’s the weirdest thing that has ever inspired one of your characters?

You can see in my work that they’re quite personal. It tends to be a sort of running narrative of where I’m at, and I think there was one particular phase a couple of years ago when I was trying out some of the dating apps (I won’t say which particular one) but it was listing some preferences and I was getting a lot of content from that time because it was hilarious, but also terrifying. And that was feeding into my work.

What makes colour feel nostalgic to you?

I’m always borrowing from different eras, but mainly the ’60s and ’70s. There’s a nostalgia to it in that I’m always using really bright colours, which I feel like now, things are a bit more muted and toned down. I’m always reaching for these bright, garish colours that have this slightly psychedelic feel to them.

What does paper bring to your practice that screens can’t?

I love the feel of working on paper. It feels meditative in a way. Also part of the process is I’m drawing, and I’m cutting things out if I make a mistake, and then that becomes part of the image itself. I love that there are these mistakes and little discrepancies that you don’t get when you’re working digitally.

What colour feels most like you now?

I’ve actually been thinking about this recently - I’m drawn towards blue at the moment. For its calmness, for tranquillity, for the sea. Yeah, I think I’m going to paint my room at home blue.