BIO

A careful study of Judith Murray’s paintings yields a multiplicity of visual variables that demands time as a component in their perceptual unfolding.

Among Murray’s signature parameters is her limited palette, which has always consisted of only four base colors: red, yellow, black, and white. Over the years, she has remained faithful to the use of only these four colors, mixing and combining them to produce a seemingly infinite variety of shades and hues. The discipline of restricting herself to this palette has given a kind of subliminal freedom, even invisible stability to the body of her work.

Compositionally, Murray works from an off-square format and all her paintings include a vertical bar along the right edge of the canvas. This thin stripe that first appeared in the 1970s has also become a permanent element in all her paintings, in effect anchoring the rest of the canvas to the picture’s frame, as well as creating a personal system. In the most recent paintings, precisely placed among the articulated brushstrokes are refined abstract shapes creating an unusual equation of tension and expansion and dialogue. This gives the paintings a broad new identity, while still maintaining her personal signature.

Judith Murray’s solo exhibitions begin in 1976 at the Betty Parsons / Jock Truman Gallery, New York, and include solo shows at the legendary Clocktower, New York; PS 1/MoMA, New York; and the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts. Her paintings have been included in the Whitney Museum Biennial, New York, and many group exhibitions worldwide. In addition to the Guggenheim Fellowship, she is the recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Academy Award for Painting and the National Endowment for the Arts Award. In 2006, filmmakers Albert Maysles (Guggenheim Fellow, 1965) and Mark Ledzian produced a documentary, “Judith Murray: Phases and Layers”, filming Murray working on a large painting. Murray was inducted into the National Academy in 2009, and has been a member of the American Abstract Artists since 1985.

Murray’s work is in numerous notable public and private collections, including those of the United States Embassy in Mumbai, India; the royal family of Abu Dhabi; the Library of Congress, Washington, DC; the National Museum of Art, Warsaw, Poland; the Brooklyn Museum, New York; the Contemporary Museum, Hawaii; and the New York Public Library. Murray’s paintings and drawings have been included in numerous anthologies. As a young artist, she was the artist-in-residence with the United States State Department in Poland. She has taught and lectured at several universities.

Judith Murray lives and works in New York City and Sugarloaf Key, Florida.
 

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