Jim Murray’s art, from Yosemite to the Southwest

Jim Murray in his San Pedro studio. Photo by Rodney Boone

The long journey continues

Space and place in the art of Jim Murray

by Bondo Wyszpolski

Among the remarkable artists living locally, one who stands out and apart from most is Jim Murray. If he’s not always in the foreground then he’s certainly in the background, pursuing his projects with a sharp focus and concentration. But let’s start at the beginning, because few people I know have been as dedicated to art, his own and others, and he’s been doing this intently for a very long time.

Peninsula: You were an Associate Professor of Art for most of the 1970s and ‘80s at Mount St. Mary’s College in Los Angeles. But I’m guessing that’s just a tip of the iceberg.

Jim Murray: My father was a post-war career officer in the Air Force, so my early pre-school and elementary years were spent on AF bases in Germany, New York, Northern California and Texas before he settled into a double tour at Norton AFB in San Bernardino.

That tour got me through High School, after which I spent just over a year at San Francisco State University before transferring to the Art Center College, then located in the mid-Wilshire district of L.A.

I finished up my BFA and Graduate degrees at Art Center, interspersed with hitchhiking through Europe and a two-year tour with the US Peace Corps in Dominica, West Indies.

I was hired right out of Art Center by Mount St Mary’s College to develop a Community College art program on their downtown Doheny Campus. I eventually moved up to the Chalon Campus in Brentwood where I gained tenure as a Studio instructor and Gallery Director.

“11:10 8 12 1973” (1974), by Jim Murray. Oil/acrylic on canvas, 72” x 108”

Peninsula: Who were the artists who initially inspired you?

Murray: For myself and for many of my peers, the path to becoming an arts professional is as varied and non-linear as any profession. I know my first awakening was stepping into San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art in 1962 and being introduced to the alternative reality of art-making via the New York abstract expressionists. The nonobjective, gestural, immediacy opened up possibilities that were to play out in the years to come.

Though I did not realize it at the time, my decision to transfer to Art Center has proven to be pivotal to my aesthetic mantra and my ability to navigate within my profession. I was fortunate to have developed the conceptual and technical skills to move my work continually forward.

“Sentinel: Cooks Meadow” (2014), by Jim Murray. Acrylic on wood panel, 36” x 18”

Peninsula: What was the most important thing you learned as an aspiring artist?

Murray: My mentorship under artist and educator, Lorser Feitelson, as an undergraduate and most notably as a graduate student, was critical to my understanding of the profession, and his mastery of the craft became the incentive to move forward, to trust one’s instincts and skills to advance and reinforce one’s work.

Peninsula: The last time we spoke at length was 10 years ago and you were preparing for a show at the Manhattan Beach Art Center, curated by Ann Martin, called “Been There – Done That – Doing This.” I’m sure that “Doing This” needs to be updated a bit. It seems you began your career with more of an emphasis on figurative art, and in particular portraits of people. You’ve done urban landscape pictures, but you’ve also zeroed in on untrammeled nature, Yosemite for example. And, more recently, by what you’ve labeled your Southwest Series. How would you describe this evolution of yours?

Murray: Trying to summarize what has now been over a fifty-year, full-time professional job as a studio artist, might be an overreach, but since I took a shot at this a couple of years back when putting together my website, let’s give it a try.

When one visits my studio, I have on display art works from the 1970s to date. Images range from figurative to landscapes to abstraction, from large 8-foot paintings to small intimate drawings, from photorealism to textured landscape abstractions.

Jim Murray in his San Pedro studio. Photo by Bondo Wyszpolski

I understand the struggle to bring these obvious disparities into a singular concept or direction, but, in fact, I have always been focused on the single concept of Time and more to the point, Place.

Each of these series involved a continuous ten to fifteen year singular commitment to my subject matter.

My early photorealistic paintings were academic, as well as a conceptual attempt to engage the viewer with the figure or figures in Space and Place.

“Untitled c.f.p” (1990), by Jim Murray. Charcoal on paper, 6” x 8.5”

The second body of works, started on a sabbatical break from Mount St Mary’s College, focused on Place, the urban landscape, also highly photorealistic, but rendered in charcoal and pastel on a notably small scale.

The following, a Winter series in Yosemite, again was a concerted effort to respond to a specific location and in this case a specific season. Once again it was about Place.

My current focus on the Southwest, like the previous Yosemite winter series, began with the same approach, a focus on the facial cliffs, altered and defined by the forces of history and nature. However, after several years of traveling through the Southwest, I felt that the interpretation of the landscape needed a different response. It was not only the vast differences between the granite cliffs of Yosemite and the varying sandstone faces of Zion and Arches National Parks, but it was the variety and vastness of the Southwest landscape and the ever-present overlay of the tribal cultures and history.

“SW W/P Study 14” (2024), by Jim Murray. Mixed Media on paper, 18” X 15”

Peninsula: Since your Southwest Series is your most recent endeavor, tell us about it, and what makes Series I different from Series II?

Murray: Outside of the change from the early paintings of the Southwest cliff faces, the primary difference is that of my changing response to the landscape, one that involves interpreting the landscape in the form of a conversation about texture and surfaces, about the processes inherent in the history of rock art, about to the degree allowable, the acknowledgment of the different tribal utilization of design and mark making.

Over the last several months I have been working in a series that is attempting to move the imagery out of the frame or structured format and bringing it more forcefully into real space. The new pieces are currently works on paper, which has the added visual benefit of juxtaposing the highly textured surfaces with the more fragile paper ground. The basic working concept and the animation from these early pieces seem to dictate more exploration.

“SW W/P Study 15” (2024), by Jim Murray. Mixed Media on paper, 20” X 120”

Peninsula: You lead groups of people to galleries and museums all across L.A. and Orange County on a regular basis to view new art. How long have you been doing this, and how can people find out more about these excursions and how to join them?

Murray: Around 2000, while teaching a number of classes at the Palos Verdes Art Center, I proposed an off-site class, which became “Art in Art Spaces”. Manhattan Beach took over the programming when PVAC dropped the class just prior to the onset of COVID. Post-COVID we made the class independent and now refer to it as a Museum and Gallery Visitation group. Since its beginning we have been meeting every Thursday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., pretty much year around.

The majority of our participants are from the South Bay and range from painters and photographers to those who have a strong interest in the visual arts and/or are prompted by the fact that L.A. and Southern California have become one of the main players in the international art conversation.

Peninsula: In your opinion, how has the art scene evolved over the last decade or two? Are there galleries or other venues that you’d like to point out as your favorites? Are there any artists in particular that you’d like to single out as promising or who should be better known?

Murray: As noted, Los Angeles and the Southern California area have become one of the primary art centers internationally by way of the notable influx of artists, galleries, art fairs and collectors, particularly over the past two decades.

I have been active in the LA art scene since the early 1970s as an artist, educator and as gallery director at Mount St. Marys University. I, along with my peers, have seen and lived the changes, from when L.A. galleries and museums could be counted on one hand, to where being out there each week with the Visitation group, cannot keep pace with the amount of new exhibitions taking place monthly.

Although our Visitation focus has been primarily to the north of the South Bay, there are quality-run exhibitions and programming right here in our local neighborhoods. Strong professional contemporary exhibitions and relevant programing are consistently offered through the Angels Gate Cultural Center, the Torrance Art Museum, the Palos Verdes Art Center, the Los Angeles Harbor Arts Gallery, and on occasion at the Manhattan Beach Art Center as well as a number of galleries and venues in San Pedro’s Downtown Arts District.

Jim Murray in his San Pedro studio. Photo by Bondo Wyszpolski

Peninsula: Apart from your studio and your website, where can people view your art? And in the meantime, what are your more immediate interests as your artistic explorations continue?

Murray: In the early ‘70s I stepped into my studio and have never left. My galleries over the years were pivotal in their support by keeping my work out there through exhibitions and connections.

But, post-COVID and after several residential downsizings, I have been able to expand that commitment to the studio with an accelerated focus on new work, which at the moment is my continued interest in the Southwest. That said, I have decided to represent my work through my studio and website exclusively.

My studio at LAHA ( Los Angeles Harbor Arts) is at 401 South Mesa in San Pedro. I can be contacted via phone or text at 310 683 3115, or through my website at jwmurrayarts.com PEN

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