Murphy

This is a painting of a Sassy officer Alex James Murphy / RoboCop (OCP Crime Prevention Unit 001). We painted it because we love everything about RoboCop. The original film of the franchise (RoboCop, 1987) has always had a special place in our hearts since we watched it as children. As we grew, we started understanding the themes of the film and loved it even more.

With this portrait we wanted to explore concepts of masculinity and gender from the point of view of a person who has been stripped of almost all aspects of their humanity, even their body. Growing up we always thought of RoboCop as an obvious "he"; however, once Alex Murphy dies and RoboCop is created from his remains, the new being is clearly (to us) genderless and asexual, although by the end of the film it still identifies as the human Alex Murphy.

We believe that, on this subject, the film's more important message is about the triumph of the human spirit, even when the subject is commoditised to the point of losing ownership of their own body and having their identity completely annulled. By the end of the story it does not matter whether RoboCop is male or female, but rather that it is human, even when mostly made of inorganic components which are the property of a corporation. We thought this was a powerful message which resonates with themes of body dysmorphia, transsexuality and transhumanism.

Once we thought about it in this way, it seemed interesting to us to paint an androgynous RoboCop to reflect that all people are humans, and should be treated as such, independently of their gender or sexual orientation, and that they would remain human even if their whole body was replaced with machinery.

It was painted between February and March 2024.