Art New England, November/December 2008
Spotlight Review, David Raymond
"Hanging Drawing Half-Drawn is a big physical event, a pouring of odd catenary arches that drape to and across the floor in a stop-action of self-description."
Boston Globe, Boston, MA, December 24, 2008
The Year's Top 10, Cate McQuaid
"Many Kinds of Nothing" at Montserrat College of Art Gallery
Boston Globe, Boston, MA, October 2008
'Nothing' is happening, Cate McQuaid
"The works in this show don't carry you away with color and drama. Indeed, they're spare, oblique, and lacking in narrative. They don't expect the viewer to make sense of them; rather,
they invite you to engage and discover what the art provokes within you. Intrinsically, they're
less about themselves than they are about you and your response to them. They work to open
an empty space, in which your assumptions fall away or are elucidated, and your perceptive powers quicken."
bigredandshiny.com, December 23, 2007
Drawing the Line at Mills Gallery, David O. Avruch
“Hanging Drawings succeeds through its simple, overt engagement with its materials and environment. Not only is it interactive and fun to use (draw?), it is a fully realized work of art. Engaging in a three-way conversation between the viewer, the pins, and gravity, the black friction tape becomes an extension not only of the viewer's artistic will but of his/her understanding of the work's specific parameters and his/her flexibility in interpreting them. In this way, the piece is almost self-aware. It is a delightful piece.”
Boston Globe, Boston, MA, December 2007
Drawing show works around the edges, Cate McQuaid
“Nancy Murphy Spicer’s Hanging Drawings does offer a fresh, interactive take on the oldest of mediums. She has mounted pins on the wall and invites viewers to drape a long, black rubbery string over them and make the work their own.”
meganandmurray.com, September 2007
“One of the most impressive shows we saw at the South End Open Studios in Boston was one that crept up on all of us....we were unknowingly standing in the midst of the exhibition: something along the lines of 'I know this room is probably just being de-installed, but it's my favorite thing I've seen all day.’”
Boston Globe, Boston, MA, September 2007
A Touch of Abstraction, Cate McQuaid
“(Murphy) Spicer’s work is low-key and delightful, as if she’s showing you a treasure map of a place you thought you already knew.”
Art Papers, January/February 2005
Reviews, David Hall
“Seamless is the sort of decadent array of drop-dead gorgeous objects and visceral encounters that makes post-structuralists blush.”
Memphis Commercial Appeal, Memphis, TN, October 15, 2004
'Seamless' a model of beauty, Frederic Koeppel
“Seamless seems like a model, in however brief or uncrowded a survey it may be, of contemporary abstraction. Rarely have the problems of filling space spontaneously yet coherently been better solved.”
Boston Globe, Boston, MA, July 11, 2004
Pretty, vacant: High-quality local work gets showcase at Tufts, Cate McQuaid
“Nancy Murphy Spicer's installations of dried paint pools and stretches of wood curling from wall to ceiling... challenge our perceptions of how to read an exhibition space and push at our expectations of what art is.”
Boston Globe, Boston, MA, February 1, 2004
At 'The Drawing Show,' works literally leap off the page, Cate McQuaid
“Many drawings insinuate themselves into the viewer's space. Those last make a strong show. Nancy Murphy Spicer's Drawing Objects features a periscope-shaped streak of poured brown latex paint rising from a puddle on the floor and turning a corner of the gallery at its top, with a fine drawn line above a nervy contrast to the mass of brown...incorporates the floor, making the art physically approach the viewer, evoking unexpected intimacy.”
South End News, Boston, MA, January 22, 2004
A painterly touch in BCA's Drawing Show, Shawn Hill
“Somewhere indefinable between painting, sculpture and drawing resides Nancy Murphy Spicer's Drawing Objects.”
Sculpture Magazine, September 2003, Reviews, Marty Carlock
“Paint becomes an object, drawing surfaces erupt into puzzle pieces, two dimensions erupt into three dimensions. Nau and Spicer’s collaboration is proof, if any is needed, that no métier is separate and isolated any more.”
Art Papers, November/December 2003
Reviews, Robin Bernat
“Eight compositions...though individually distinct, naturally correspond, cohering into a single organic space and conjuring up a variety of biomorphic associations related to the human body, sea forms, pond life...all pulsing and effervescent.”
Art New England, June/July 2003
Regional Reviews, Shawn Hill
“Nancy Murphy Spicer's poured works are the most provacative in the show. Here near-subliminal Drawing Above is a tangled skein of busy loops in gray, black and white...Here, at last, gesture and process break through to become idiosyncratic and affective.”
Boston Globe, December 29, 2002
Best of 2002, Cate McQuaid
“Chris Nau and Nancy Murphy Spicer, in their self-titled show at the Gallery at Green Street, separately and together created a thrill ride that toyed with viewers' expectations of what, exactly, is flat.”
Boston Globe, August 23, 2002
Some Edgy Artists Play with Space, Cate McQuaid
“By using the entire room, Murphy Spicer opens up the painting and lets us walk in.”
Retro-Rocket.com, August 16, 2002
On the Wall, Paul Parcellin
“The fact that this work is anchored to the gallery wall makes it a one-of-a-kind experience.”
ArtsMedia, September 5, 2002
Gallery, Rachel Strutt
“(Murphy) Spicer's installations are also not to be missed. At once whimsical and insidious...the large-scale works are enveloping, inviting viewers to be protagonists in Spicer's surreal, otherworldly landscape of dots and loops.”
Boston Herald, December 9, 2002
Toale Gallery Exhibit Draws on Trends, Mary Sherman
“Nearly all of these pieces, however, adhere to the convention of drawing as something executed within a rectangular frame. The exception is Nancy Murphy Spicer's quirky piece Black and White Cells. White circles, outlined in black, extend from the floor up the wall, like some strange hybrid virus bubbling up and intruding into the gallery's elegant installation of identically framed works.”
