Judith Murray
Artist Statement:
I work primarily in oil on linen canvases, sculpting paint into abstract compositions. My early work was spare and assertive with irregular geometric forms which over the years evolved more to the natural world as sensations, formalized by color, brush strokes, and scale.
By mixing and combining a limited pallet of only four base colors: red, yellow, black, and white, I produce a seemingly infinite variety of shades and hues. It has given me a kind of subliminal freedom, even an invisible stability to the work.
All my paintings and drawings include a vertical bar along the right edge. It acts as a visual foil for the rest, a dialogue between two parts, a duet, a response, a personal system.
I have traveled extensively—from the jungles of South America to the temples of Asia, looking at parallels in crafts and art—and believe these colors represent a primary universal palette, with references to prehistoric painting and aboriginal art around the world.
Artist Biography:
Judith Murray, who lives and works in New York City, was a pioneer in establishing her studio in what became Soho in 1973. She began her career with a groundbreaking solo show at the historic Betty Parsons Gallery in 1976. John Perreault of the former Soho News called Murray a “Non-Conformist Artist” in a full-page review of that show.
Besides numerous gallery exhibitions, she has had solo shows at the legendary Clocktower, New York; MoMA PS1, New York; the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts; and the Scully Tomasko Foundation, New York. Her paintings have been included in more than thirty museum exhibitions worldwide, including at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museo di Palazzo Grimani, Venice; and the Museo de Art Moderno, Mexico City.
There have been two monograph books published on her work: Judith Murray: From Vibrato to Legato, 2006, 132 pages, and Judith Murray: Paradise Paradox, 2025, 136 pages.
She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Academy Award for Painting, and the National Endowment for the Arts Award.
She was inducted into the American Abstract Artists in 1985, the National Academy of Design in 2009, as well as the Artists’ Fellowship inc.
AAA:
Member Since: 1985
