John Murray classes week of April 1, 2013

Welcome to my classes this Spring... unfortunately the catalog has my class names wrong this term...don't worry, whichever class you signed up for I will try to make provocative and thoughtful. Please bring materials to work the first day (there is a supply list).
I have included a recent deconstructed painting? that acknowledges some of the literal materials in painting. I do feel that painting needs to move beyond the smearing of store bought tubed paint and generic pre-stretched canvases into something more alert and self-aware. I will be glad to have a discussion of these issues with the class.
Happy Spring! see you next week, John.

John Murray classes week of March 25, 2013

This is vacation week, but there is a makeup class on Mon. the 25th (Passover begins at sundown).
Anyone who missed that snow Mon. cancellation, or who missed a class for any reason is welcome to come and work.
I very much enjoyed working with all artists this term and I hope you signed up for next term which begins on  Mon. April 1st.
Thank you, John

John Murray classes week of March 18,2013

The last week of the term!

It went fast for me. I hope you were annoyed and provoked at times. I was! There is no way to teach art without the constant pushandpull/upanddown pleasure&paindoubt&fearlove&hatedespair&joy that I hope the class at least hinted at for you.

For the last week let's try a small painterly installation. It could go in a corner of the studio on the floor or on a table. Use paint, tape, wood cardboard, paper ?

When you get something that you kind of like we'll take a picture of it.

Also I will review any work you did if you bring it into class.

Thank you! See you next week, john.

John Murray classes week of March 11, 2013

Art predicates and structures the world, such as we are in a position to apprehend, comprehend, or know it. Stein and Joyce are as intensely aware of this as are Paul de Man or Jacques Derrida. This apprehension is crucial. It is the stuff good art is made of, yet it places the practice of painting in a slightly uncomfortable position. For if art is"made" of this apprehension, if objects in which the language-nature of Being and reality have already been installed, pre-programmed in an implicit or immanent way, how then are paintings to register this distinctive twentieth-century tension without in some sense relinquishing their nature, without becoming something other than art, as traditionally understood. This is a predicament in which any work, any poetry responding to this sort of apprehension, would place itself. If the constitution and motive of painting shuttle from immanence and silence to explicitness, can it still be art? Or will a mode of poetic discourse have emerged that is somehow art and not art at the same time, sharing the same bizarre fusion of organic and inorganic, dead and living elements of Kafka or Matisse. Such an uncomfortable but at the same time funny and mold-shattering work might well be something new under the sun.

See you next week, john.

john murray classes week of March, 4, 2013

Next week lets add a minimal element to a self portrait above is a Georg Baselitz sculpture that is a
grid hacked from a piece of wood.
Abstract art requires constant manipulation of the material and the viewer. Yes the viewer must be pushed and abused aesthetically in order for the artist to register both retinally and emotionally.
Try another self portrait in a different manner/material/mindset...

See you next week, john.