STAY SOFT

Murdoch's wobbly interpretations of familiar objects – from vape pens to tabi boots – have led to collaborations with London’s Serpentine Gallery and a solo exhibition, geline, at Frieze’s No.9 Cork Street Gallery in 2025. The show was named for the material Murdoch developed to create her sculptures; it encouraged visitors not just to look, but to touch.

“I OFTEN MANIPULATE FAMILIAR OBJECTS BY ADDING OR TAKING AWAY DETAILS SO YOU’RE THROWN OFF THE SCENT OF WHAT THEY ARE. IT ACTIVATES YOUR EDGES: YOU FEEL LIKE YOU HAVE TO VERIFY THROUGH TOUCH.”​​

Murdoch admits her relationship with jelly is love-hate. While working as a set designer, she would often cringe when she received a request for the foodstuff: “It was something that I always rolled my eyes at because it feels quite saccharine, a very earnest source of joy.” The shift came when she was commissioned to make “otherworldly, ornate shapes for an alien banquet” for a Marvel project. Real jelly would melt under the heat of camera lights, so she began researching biomaterials and developed her own unique formula, landing on an algae-based medium that had “the rigidity of resin and the clarity of glass”, while retaining jelly’s signature jiggle. 

Murdoch’s home also doubles as her studio. “I work all the time, so I really like working at home. It needs to be somewhere I love being. I’m very spontaneous, so I like to be able to make jellies mid-phone call or before I go to bed.” Her shed houses her archive of sculptures, casting equipment, nearly 2000 moulds and leftover biomaterials, which can be melted down and reused for future projects. Maintaining this setup for both work and leisure can be a challenge. “I like to think of myself as a tidy person, but my practice makes me chaotic!”, she says. Murdoch has been known to work through the night, for up to 18 hours, fine-tuning her sculptures. “I have a pact with my friend that she’ll give upsmoking if I go to bed earlier – both of us will die on this hill!”

Murdoch’s work is concerned with the way in which familiar objects – be they food items orwholly inedible – can be made to feel new again. “I often manipulate familiar objects by adding or taking away details so you’re thrown off the scent of what they are,” she says. “It activates your edges: you feel like you have to verify through touch.” Perhaps most revealing has been the public response to the works, which has run the gamut from intrigue to repulsion to arousal. “It wasn’t until I started sharing work that people were like ‘How salacious!’ I had no idea what they meant.” Yet it is this tension that animates her practice. In her home, such unusual forms sit quietly among the wood and the marble, demanding to be handled and questioned. They are alien interventions in an otherwise serene space, ones that reveal that the familiar is never quite as stable as it seems.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY THEA CAROLINE SNEVE LØVSTAD