According to New York artist, James Austin Murray,
"The focus in my paintings is light. They have a reflective nature that interacts with the light around them. This makes the work subtly interactive with their environments. Black absorbs the full spectrum of light and what we have left is pure reflections of color.
I'm compelled to make these paintings by my interest in light and movement, in the paint itself, and the color and character of reflective light.
At times I work off-square. I let the shapes influence the paint and give it both a parameter to play with and work within."
James Austin Murray’s paintings are made using the most basic of means: ivory black oil paint, a canvas and wood-panel support, and wallpaper brushes—up to nine affixed to a long handle. But the surface effects are far from simple, and indeed offer an almost otherworldly experience, as the striations from the brush take the eye on a roller-coaster journey into pleats and folds, over light-struck hillocks and into shadowy crooks and bends. Depending on where you stand, the paintings look like a forbidding landscape you could walk right into. It’s a visual encounter that is both unsettling and profoundly seductive.
New York City artist, James Austin Murray is a graduate of Parsons School of Design, New York . He has exhibited throughout the world -- US, Asia and Europe -- including New York, Miami, California, St. Louis, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and a recent two person show in Monaco. He is a recipient of the Dedalus Foundation Fellowship Award for residency at The Vermont Studio Center, VT and has completed residencies at The Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild in Woodstock, NY and Bermis Center for Contemporary Art in Omaha, NE.
Murray’s work is found in public collections such Sofitel (Philadelphia, PA), Hotel Palomar (Philadelphia, PA), Four Seasons Hotel (Washington, D.C.), Omni Hotel (Nashville, TN) and Tom Ford (Designer).
James Austin Murray’s paintings are made using the most basic of means: ivory black oil paint, a canvas and wood-panel support, and wallpaper brushes—up to nine affixed to a long handle. But the surface effects are far from simple, and indeed offer an almost otherworldly experience, as the striations from the brush take the eye on a roller-coaster journey into pleats and folds, over light-struck hillocks and into shadowy crooks and bends. Depending on where you stand, the paintings look like a forbidding landscape you could walk right into. It’s a visual encounter that is both unsettling and profoundly seductive.
New York City artist, James Austin Murray is a graduate of Parsons School of Design, New York . He has exhibited throughout the world -- US, Asia and Europe -- including New York, Miami, California, St. Louis, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and a recent two person show in Monaco. He is a recipient of the Dedalus Foundation Fellowship Award for residency at The Vermont Studio Center, VT and has completed residencies at The Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild in Woodstock, NY and Bermis Center for Contemporary Art in Omaha, NE.
Murray’s work is found in public collections such Sofitel (Philadelphia, PA), Hotel Palomar (Philadelphia, PA), Four Seasons Hotel (Washington, D.C.), Omni Hotel (Nashville, TN) and Tom Ford (Designer).
According to James Austin Murray: “My work as an artist is about searching and it’s a little like searching in a dark room with a flashlight that will only brighten a few inches in front of it. We artists feel our way along the walls and try to identify the furniture and layout of the place that we find ourselves in. We use the tools we have and each of us arrive with slightly different tools. Each of us learn to build different tools to help us plod on in the dark.
Sometimes the dark is where you find the best surprises. Almost a decade ago, I moved from figurative work to working on small canvases, limiting myself to black oil paint. Forcing this parameter on myself was unpredictably liberating. Over the years I’ve expanded and contracted on my limiting parameters. I spent several years building shaped canvases which were a jumping off point for the paint that followed. Nearly a year and a half ago, I decided to go back to a single shape, the square. I wasn’t sure how far I could take it before I hit a wall and needed to reconsider the next step.
To my surprise, I found this even tighter parameter offered more of the unexpected. Every time I felt myself inching up to that wall, I found a way past it. Like martial arts, there was a type of repetition involved and I knew that if I ever got to the point where I could only repeat myself, I would be done with it. The surprise I am talking about is the increments of improvement in the technique and subject. I gathered more control and became more demanding of the work and more and more of the paintings would get scrapped because they just weren’t as good as I came to expect. In truth, I keep expecting to hit the wall but somehow I keep getting past it.”
James Austin Murray
Selected Exhibitions
Selected Solo Shows
2018 Distant Stars, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO
Future Proof, Lyons Wier Gallery, NY
2017 Light on Black, Madison Gallery, La Jolla, CA (upcoming)
Solo Booth, Scope NY with Lyons Wier Gallery, New York, NY
2016 Super Massive Black Hole, Lyons Wier Gallery, New York, NY
2015 Asia Contemporary Art Show, Hong Kong, China
2014 Art Market Hamptons, with Lyons Wier Gallery (Bridgehampton, NY)
Lyons Wier Gallery, (NYC)
Asia Contemporary Art Show, (Hong Kong, China)
2013 Ides of March, Narthex Gallery at St. Peters (NYC)
2007 Tree’s Whisper, Dam-Stuhltrager (Brooklyn, NY)
2005 Over-On, Dam-Stuhltrager (Brooklyn, NY)
2004 Visiting Artist, International Gallery of Contemporary Art (Anchorage, AK)
2001 On and Off White, L.I.C.K. Ltd, Fine Art (LIC, NY)
Two Person Shows
2019 Curved Lines, Opera Gallery, Monaco
2018 Convergent Evolution, REDSEA Gallery, Singapore
Selected Group Shows
2018 Autumnal Group Exhibition, Lyons Wier Gallery, New York, NY
2017 Chromatopia, Tacit Gallery, Abbotsford, Vic, Australia
Luminance, Lyons Wier Gallery, New York, NY
STROKE OF GENIUS, Lyons Wier Gallery, New York, NY
2016 Walking Slow, Brooklyn Workshop Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
2015 Fourthought (four person show), Lyons Wier Gallery, New York, NY
2015 Lost Cat, Cape Cod Museum of Art, Dennis, MA
Governors Island Art Fair, New York, NY
Unlimited Potential, Lyons Wier Gallery, New York, NY
Pulse New York with Lyons Wier Gallery, New York, NY
2014 Art Miami, Lyons Wier Gallery, (Miami, FL)
The New Artist Preview, Melissa Morgan Fine Art, (Desert Springs, CA)
2013 1stDibs, New York Design Center, (NYC)
2012 Governors Island Art Fair, (NYC)
2011 Highline Open Studio Preview Exhibition, (NYC)
2011 Dia:Beacon Staff Exhibition, Marion Royael Gallery, (Beacon, NY)
2008 American Lifescape, DBA256, (Pomona, CA)
NYU Small works show, 80 WSE, (NYC)
Panorama Project 3, Jonathan LeVine Gallery, (NYC)
Scope Miami, Dam-Stuhltrager, (Miami, FL)
2005 Scope Miami, Dam-Stuhltrager, (Miami, FL)
New Artist Show, Bettcher Gallery, (Miami, FL)
Le Papier, Gescheidle Gallery, (Chicago, Illinois)
Group Show, Soho Myriad, (Atlanta, GA)
Scope NY, Lyons-Wier Gallery, (NYC)
2002 The Panorama Project, The Front Room (Brooklyn, NY)
2001 The Exquisite Day Project, Plus Ultra (Brooklyn, NY)
2000 Flowers and Configurations, Angel International Art, (EastHampton, NY)
1999 Sex Death and Religion, Gershwin Hotel Gallery, (NYC)
Size Matters, Gale Gates et al. (Brooklyn, NY)
Places People, 313 Gallery, (NYC)
1992 Human Condition, 313 Gallery, (NYC)
Awards and Residences
2011 Dedalus Foundation Fellowship Award for residency at VSC
Residency at The Vermont Studio Center
Artist in Residence at The Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild
2012 Bemis Center for Contemporary Art
Public Collections
Sofitel, Philadelphia, PA
Hotel Palomar, Philadelphia, PA
Four Seasons Hotel, Washington D.C.
Omni Hotel, Nashville, TN
Tom Ford, Designer
Publications
October 2018, http://voyageatl.com/interview/art-life-james-austin-murray/
January 2017, http://vasari21.com/james-austin-murray/
March 2014, https://artefuse.com/2014/04/07/james-austin-murray-mystery-of-light-at-lyons-wier-gallery/
March 2014, http://sbmacinnis.wordpress.com/2014/03/02/have-you-met-james-austin-murray/
April 2013, http://studiocritical.blogspot.com
March and April 2013, www.artorbiter.com
August 2012, http://www.joannemattera.blogspot.com/2012/08/fifty-shades-of-gray.html
February and April 2012, www.artorbiter.com
April 2006, Artinfo.com
September 2005, New York Daily News, featured artist “Open Studios”
February 2004, Artnet
November 2001, The Tribeca Trib, Tribeca Personal
September 2001, ABC Evening News, Interview and discussion of exhibition
September 2001, New York Post, Page Six mention of opening that evening
November 2000, Bloomberg Business News, Interview: “Silent Auction Fundraiser for The Burn Center Foundation’
Summer 2000, Arts4all.com, “Murray headed east, an American in Kosice”
June 2000, The Tribeca Trib, “Out of the Flames” review by Jeanne C. Wilkinson
May 2000, New York Contemporary Art Report, review of “Hello Goodbye”
April 2000, Arts4all.com, Review of Paint Club project
March 18th and 19th 2000, NY1, Television interview and review of Paint Club project
February 2000, Makta Opas (Finish cultural magazine), Article about NY artist as curator
November 21, 1999, New York Times
