The Endless Highway
Jim Murray’s painterly explorations span decades
Artist Jim Murray and curator Ann Martin with Murray’s “4:30 7 23 1972 (Cathy/Dick/Alex)” (1973). Photo
Going back 40 years and more, there have been seismic shifts in the work of Manhattan Beach artist Jim Murray, shifts of style, medium, and focus that have welled up over time and then propelled a sudden jolt towards a new subject and/or approach. “Been There – Done That – Doing This” surveys three distinct series, one after the other, stretching from 1972 to the present day. Curated by Ann Martin, this fundamental body of work goes on view this evening, Thursday, April 30, in the Manhattan Beach Art Center.
Murray graduated from the Art Center College of Design with a BFA in Illustration (1971) and an MFA in painting (1972). The earliest work in “Been There” dates from this time and initiates the “Figure Series.” It is comprised of photo-realist portraits, many of them larger than life, and this was an avenue–or vision, if you prefer–that Murray pursued through 1985.
“The figure series,” he says, “came to be focused fairly quickly and fairly consistently, primarily because my undergraduate work as an illustrator back in those days [meant that] basically you’re always using photo-text or photo-reference material. So I was constantly doing illustrations that were based upon photographs.”
Murray’s initial forays were monochromatic, in black and white. Eventually–like the photographic medium itself–he moved beyond the grays and into color, albeit soft tones. “I lost a little of the documentary nature of the black and whites, but at the same time I gained a kind of intensity with the color. For the next five or six years I was doing these very large, time-consuming photo-realist paintings.”
“Sentinel West: Shard 1” (2012), by Jim Murray
Many if not most photo- or hyper-realist painters work from photographs, but the best ones find a way to evade creating simply a painted photograph, and thus they tweak the image a little. To some extent, Murray also brought in a personal touch, realigning backgrounds and so on.
He mined this particular vein for a good dozen years, “and then there came a point in which these paintings, which took up to four or five months to do, became just so consuming. I was teaching full-time at Mount St. Mary’s College, running the gallery and being active in the gallery scene around town.” Murray had lots of ideas for paintings, but he simply couldn’t get to them quick enough.
And thus, a seismic shift
“So I took a little break,” Murray says, “and eventually came back to drawing.” In the interim he’d added a second floor to his home, converting a large part of it into a spacious workplace. Looking out of his studio window he could see the El Segundo refinery, and in the evening it lit up the sky and created the kinds of atmospheric effects that make an artist sit up and take notice.
“Untitled e.s.s. (el segundo smoke)” (1989), by Jim Murray
So began the second series, a vast array of urban landscape drawings that occupied Murray in large part from 1986 to 2005. In many of these works, mostly done in charcoal on paper, the horizon line crouches near the bottom of the image and various cloud formations sweep across the sky. There is a documentary feel to almost all of these works — it wouldn’t be amiss to call Murray a documentary artist — but in most cases it’s the fleeting effects of evening that dominate recognizable landmarks (downtown Manhattan Beach, the Century Freeway during construction, etc.).
“Shard 6: Bridalveil Falls 3” (2014), by Jim Murray
As with his figure series, the monochromatic ran its course and Murray gravitated towards pastels, a medium he handles with great skill and sensitivity. That was during the early 2000s, and was largely spurred by images and accounts of several major Southern California wildfires, including one in the foothills of San Bernardino that torched Murray’s former home, one he’d grown up in.
“So I took a little more of a personal interest in it,” he says. The intensity of the images seized his imagination and he set out to collect “huge amounts of fire imagery.” Much of it was locatable online and thus accessible in a way that going to the fires was not. “And from those (images),” Murray says, “I would then compose pictures and that’s how the fire series got developed.”
“Untitled G.C. 3 (Guadalupe Cemetery)” (1990), by Jim Murray
And an impressive series, or subseries, it is, as the viewer will see in Manhattan Beach.
“11:10 8 12 1973 (Joyce/Roger)” (1974), by Jim Murra
Rugged terrain, open spaces
Jim Murray taught for a few summers in Yosemite National Park, and had spent some winter holidays up there as well, but “it was not until 2007 when I began to conduct annual winter workshops in the Yosemite valley that I recognized my deep connection to the park and the terrain’s unique transformation during the winter season.”
What Murray discovered in the pristine beauty of the landscape was a “monochromatic kind of imagery that verged on abstraction when you cropped in on it.” This isn’t to say he didn’t paint some standard views of the scenery, but with his detailed canvases and wood panels of snow-covered crags and frozen waterfalls Murray thrusts his viewers into a position of seeing subjectively and objectively at the same time, at a point where the representational and the abstract seem to close in on one another and hold hands. It’s fine, accomplished work, and the Yosemite series spans an entire decade.
I’m not sure if he’s closed or is closing the door on it, but lately there’s been a greater focus on yet another body of work, which is his Southwest series. It’s based, Murray explains, “on a lot of red-rock formations in which nature — either by wind or sand or rain — has essentially carved out these unique spaces.” Much of the visual effect is augmented by the iron deposits integrated into the rock and exposed to light. However, none of this work is in the current show.
“5:00 4 1 1973 (JRM)” (1973), by Jim Murray
“I do a huge amount of photography and documentation,” Murray says, and the more choices he can draw from the closer he gets to his desired image. He describes his many road trips: “Last year I spent two weeks up in Yellowstone, and the next step will be up to Glacier.” Tellingly, he adds, “I’m constantly looking. It’s just that something has to resonate just right for me to commit to it.”
What about those of us standing in front of Murray’s work? Well, all of it’s photo-generated in one way or another, “but it’s also about place,” he says. “It’s about the viewer’s relationship to a particular site.” This is especially true of the Yosemite series and presumably just as true of the ongoing Southwest series.
On Saturday, May 16, at 2 p.m., when Murray talks about his work at the gallery, people can ask what motivates him, which artists he admires, how he composes his pictures, and how he amassed his large and wonderful collection of art books.
Regarding “most of my peers, those of us who have made this long-time commitment to our work, it remains about the process. It’s about what goes into creating that final image. The final image is not what drives the work, it’s all the decision-making that goes into that final image.”
And when it’s complete? “Once that final image is done we’re back to square one, and we want to start working on something else.”
Jim Murray’s “Been There – Done That – Doing This: Three Series, Four Decades” opens tonight, Thursday, with a reception from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Manhattan Beach Art Center, 1560 Manhattan Beach Blvd., Manhattan Beach. Hours, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m., and Thursday from 1 to 8 p.m. Through June 7. Call (310) 802-5440 or go to citymb.info.