Ray Murphy was born in Cork in 1950, and now lives in Laois. He studied at the Crawford School of Art in Cork, and National College of Art in Dublin.

Murphy has exhibited in Laois, Dublin, Wicklow, and Galway, in various groups and solo exhibitions, and his works are held in both private and State collections, including those of the Office of Public Works, Laois County Council, the Tynan Gallery, and Shazad Contractor, California.

He has been involved in various art programmes with the Arts Office in Co. Laois, including a collaborative exhibition with poet Jean O’Brien in which he illustrated her award-winning poem 'Merman'.

In 2018, he exhibited Form: Dark to Light at the Clifden Arts Festival. This series of still lifes in oil is connected with a previous collection entitled Drawing from the Past, exhibited at the Tynan Gallery, Portlaoise, in 2007, and is a development of the same theme, with its focus on objects from the period kitchen. This work demonstrates Murphy’s unique style of figurative painting, with an emphasis on chiaroscuro technique.