Kathryn Murray, Abstract Painting. My painting started as a means of escape. Years of daily care-giving required a serious release. A collage class with Rose Nygaard started me on a path where I could paint on tissue paper and find a way to be outside myself. For many many evenings and hundreds of “paintings” I spent art time alone when the day was done. Now I find that all that what I learned then and much that has come to me since helps inform my work. (Also, prior to painting I had been and continue to be serious about photography. My time spent “looking” for photography helped in composition for my painting.) My work is predominantly painting on tissue. This technique feels spontaneous and sometimes is an effective way to address my inside life musings. Often the work may seem totally abstract with colors juxtaposed from each other or in geometric shapes. At other times though, the real world drifts in and there is a suggestion of a landscape or a structure. Nothing really concrete but a suggestion.
The paintings seem to move from colorist, to gestural, to expressionist, to geometric and then back around again. Each pass at each approach helps the vocabulary to reach a bit further. Essentially this is about color, energy, magic and the hope that the viewer will feel elation or a sense of freedom. This August show is entitled “Some Joyful Noise.” The work reflects emerging from a period of grief as well as Covid, and feeling lighter.