John murray classes week of March 14, 2011

i've been amazed by the work of Cy Twombly for years... the leap of imagination required to make these paintings and then the decades of development and movement he brought to this ouvre. MOMA has just aquired five of his paintings. His work has been under-represented in America for many years. the piece above, "Tiznit" is from 1953 and is Dutch Boy house paint pencil and crayon. Let's try a personal vision in reductive terms, perhaps monochromatic....this painting was homage to tribal objects Mr. Twombly saw at the ethnographic museum in Rome. This is akin to Picasso and Matisses's use of African masks 4 decades earlier...it also shows his obligation to Paul Klee's iconic renditions of figures and ground fom the thirties and forties...in art nothing exists in a vacuum, but the graphic surprise that occurs when visions appear out of the box of convention can belie their heritage. see you next week, john.

John Murray classes week of March 7, 2011

Expanding painting beyond the obvious.

Painting has been around for 50,000 years.

Since hunter gathers began expressing themselves with pigment and animal fat on the walls of European caves, the human race has been involved in painterly activity.

The two illustration above are interesting example of recent avant-garde painting. Cy Twombly's curtain at the Vienna Opera House (thanks Denise) and katharina Grosse's painterly installation at Mass MOCA. In my own work, i have begun a simple and direct oil painting series that belies this concept, but for years i've struggled with the idea of break-through painting and feel the need to simplify and allow myself to just paint for awhile. i think that all contemporary painters should try and move their art toward some plastic ineffable. see you next week, john.

John murray classes week of Feb. 28, 2011

The Province Town dunes and obscure old Delta blues.

i spent wed and thurs of last week in ProvinceTown and hiked for miles through the gorgeous sand dunes and beaches on this ocean racked strip of land. i was also reading a book, "The Delta Blues", by Ted

Gioia, a faculty member at Stanford and music critic and writer. The combination of this exquisite, bleak winter landscape and the excellent description of this amazing music and culture by the author: "...one of the most salient and overlooked truths about the traditional blues: the supposed inadequacies of its most famous exponents were not limitations to be lamented, but rather inseparable from their brilliance. As such , they were no different than the avant-garde artists dazzling audiences in other genres of the time-Joyce, Picasso, Eliot and the like".

This is an idea that has a special place in my aesthetic, especially when faced with an over-whelming visual phenomena such as the sea, sky and dunes on the outer-beaches of the winter Atlantic. One's inadequacies are one's strengths in the face of such experience.

See you next week, john.

John murray classes week of Feb.14,2011

Staining and texture:

Try a painting that incorporates staining justaposed with thicker textural elements, as this Helen Frankenthaler painting, "For Hiroshige" does so effectively.

Read the review in the Friday New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/) art and design section under Art in Review, by Roberta Smith of a show of her work "East and Beyond"at Knoedler & Company.

Postmodern Assemblage:

At the same nytimes.com site take a look at the Arts section lead story on the MOMA "Picasso: Guitars 1912-1914" show that opens this Sunday and runs trough June 6. Try a cardboard assemblage object yourself. e
See you next week. john.

John murray classes week of Feb. 7, 2011

Living in the frozen world

Try and make a work of art that incorporates the bleak and beautiful conditions of this winter so far.

Not necessarily a winter landscape, but perhaps an emotional and psychological portrait of the season and its effect on you. Above at the left is a painting by Robert Ryman, check his work on line, he was very influential on my work in the early 70's and was a rich source of painterly plasticity in that times often flat work surfaces that were so emblematic of minimalism.

PostModern Assemblage:

Try a white assenblage with plaster, wood and white paint on the same theme. See you next week, barring weather cancelations. john.

John Murray classes week of Jan. 31, 2011

Winter painting:

Mon. am Oil and Acrylic Workshop and Wed both sections of Supercharged painting...try a painting that deals with the Artic weather we've been suffering through.

Use any medium, any size and any mark-making ideas you have. Collage is a possibility as well as poured and brushed, charcoal and oil as well as acrylic gels of all types.

Monday pm Postmodern Assemblage: we will have a model again this week, anyone in wed. am Supercharged painting, where we've had no model, may come and work with model this week. This will be the last opportunity to paint from a model this term.

Sculptors in this class please bring plaster, twine, cardboard and paint

to work from the figure again this week. See you next week. john.

john murray classes week of jan. 24, 2011

All classes except Wed. am will have a model this week. i have been unable to find a model for wed mornings. If you really desire to work with a model and are in Wed. am class please feel free to swap time and day and come especially Mon pm which is a small class and could handle extra artists.
Postmodern Assemblage artists please come prepared to deal with a model on Mon.
Bring twine cardboard tape and plaster as well as acrylic paint and drawing pad and any other materials you feel you need to process a piece directly from the figure.
Thank you, see you next week. john.