Jasmine Murphy, a 29-year-old artist from Aigburth, has secured a place on the MA in Fine Art: Painting at Camberwell College of Arts, part of University of the Arts London, after graduating with a first class honours degree from Liverpool Hope University. She has also been awarded a highly competitive scholarship, which takes £7,000 off the cost of her master's.
While her graduation artwork is currently being exhibited in the Zari Gallery in London after earning an award of excellence, Jasmine said she has struggled to find the money to get there. She has launched a GoFundMe crowdfunding appeal to help cover the upfront costs of relocating, including accommodation, travel, and transportation of her art materials. She said she has already missed the first week of her course because she has been unable to afford everything needed to make the move.
From hospitality to art school
For Jasmine, the journey to this point has been anything but conventional. After leaving school without believing university was an option and working in hospitality, she finally decided to take a chance on her childhood passion.
She told the ECHO: “I’ve always loved art. It’s always been the one thing that I could just get lost in. In any pictures of me from my childhood, I’ve normally got a paintbrush or a pen or something in my hands.”
After completing a Level 3 in art in college, Jasmine found herself working in hospitality because she needed the money. She eventually became a manager, but said she always felt something was missing. During the pandemic, she began painting more and selling her work, which gave her the confidence to consider university, but the decision to leave a steady job and become a student was daunting.
She said: “No one in my family had ever gone to uni. I’d just been brought up by my single mum. It just felt like so far away, like just something I couldn’t reach. When I was 18, I didn’t know you could get a student loan and stuff like that.”
University 'changed her life'
Eventually, she took the plunge and said that university “changed her life”. During her studies, she travelled to Japan, held her own solo exhibition at Bridewell Studios on Prescot Street, selling around 80% of the work on the opening night, and became increasingly involved in Liverpool’s creative scene.
She said: “When I went into my first year of uni, that’s when I realised 'oh yeah, I’m quite good'. I don’t think you know until you’re around tutors and other people who tell you that you are good at what you do.” She also developed a distinctive style of painting inspired by music, colour and the atmosphere of the city's nightlife.
Jasmine has worked at venues including The Invisible Wind Factory, The Kazimier Gardens and Substation, and began live painting at events, using the music and movement around her as inspiration. She said: “I love going to raves, I love dancing, I love doing things that make me forget about what’s going on in the world today. So that’s why I decided to blend the two things that I love so much – being free and dancing at festivals, and also being lost in painting and art.”
She said Liverpool’s creative community played a huge part in helping her realise that an artistic career was possible. She said: “It was the fact that you can just walk into any gallery or any show. Scousers are so friendly. If you’re looking at a piece of artwork, you’re automatically going to talk to them about it in Liverpool because we’re all chatty anyway. I just felt inspired by being surrounded by a lot of Liverpool artists who were older than me and like-minded. The art world in Liverpool is quite small, but all those people did really encourage me and made me realise, ‘Oh yeah, I can do this’.”
Venues such as The Bridewell, The Kazimier Gardens, and The Invisible Wind Factory became places where Jasmine could meet people, make connections and experiment. She believes the freedom of Liverpool’s grassroots scene is particularly important. She said: “There’s no rules. They’re quite free, and they’re not constrained to anything. If they want to put something on on a Thursday night, for example, they can. It means the people who go there feel freer and are more open to having those conversations in these really quirky, weird places in Liverpool.”
Financial sacrifices and a new hurdle
But pursuing her degree came at a personal financial cost. Jasmine said she had to work long overnight bar shifts and spend 16-hour days in the university studio just to afford the materials she needed. There were times when she chose beans on toast over a more expensive meal so she could buy artist-quality paint.
She said: “I’d be like, ‘I’m just going to have jacket potatoes all week,’ or I’d have beans on toast, or I’d go to work, and I’d know I’d get fed in work. It meant I could get the resources I needed. Once I realised the difference between artist paint and normal paint, I couldn’t go back, so I’d choose paint over having something nice for tea.” She even began swapping her artwork for things she needed. She said: “I’ve been using it as currency a bit, and it has worked. That’s what Liverpool’s like. We are a community. People always look after you, and I’d return the favour by giving people paintings. I’ve swapped a lot of things over the years for paintings.”
Now, after all the sacrifices, Jasmine is facing another financial obstacle. Her scholarship removes £7,000 from her master's fees, but she said her student loan is largely being swallowed by London rent. Her current accommodation is only secured until January, leaving her worried about how she will afford the months that follow.
She said: “There's just so much money that I just didn't realise I needed to be able to go. I just don’t think it’s fair that all these hurdles are constantly coming up. I feel like I definitely won one hurdle with the scholarship, but then there’s another one, and there’s another one, especially from my background. I don’t have anyone to ask for or to lean on. But I’ll sort something out because I’m Jasmine Murphy, I always end up figuring it out somehow.”
Jasmine, who was diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia after leaving school, said she spent years believing she was simply “stupid”. Her art classroom became a place where she felt able to be herself, and she hopes her journey can encourage other young people who might feel that higher education or an artistic career is beyond them.
She now wants to use her master's to meet artists from around the world, develop her practice, and build a career that allows her to make a living from her work. But she also wants to continue giving something back. She said: “I want to make this my living for the rest of my life. I want to make those connections with buyers, art collectors and also encourage people like me from working-class backgrounds to just follow their dreams.”
For Jasmine, the move to London is not about leaving Liverpool behind. Instead, she sees it as the next step in a journey that began in the city’s grassroots creative spaces. She said: “I want to get out of Liverpool and go and broaden my horizons and share my artwork not just in Liverpool, but in London and further and around the world. To be able to do that is so difficult if you come from a community like mine. It’s surreal, but I’m really proud because I’ve worked so hard.”
