John Murray classes week of August 20, 2012

IT'S ALWAYS SUMMER ON THE INSIDE: As Roberta Smith said about this exhibit; "This show at Anton Kern Gallery in Manhattan takes its title from a 1970s wet-suit advertisement. Catch the phrase’s suggestion of interiority — of the freewheeling mind and imagination as the main source of artistic inspiration. Beyond the varied and engaging ways these works converse with one another, each manages to add a further bit of resonance and rightness to the title".

That's how this class has felt to me every night. Some terrific work has been accomplished and we still have 2 more weeks to go. Go online and take a look at some of the work in the show and then try taking the spirit of that theme and painting your response. See you next week, john. 

John Murray classes week of August 13, 2012

We had a male model last Wed. and some really strong painting was accomplished by artists who attended.

This week I would like to get beyond the retinal rods and cones and skin of the illusion and strip down to the skeletal structure of the figure and the painting. What does that mean? Well above is a painting by Les Rogers that does that with that old chestnut "Skeleton and Cigarette". Check Rogers' work online and a show at Half Gallery, "Summer Swells" on the Lower East Side. Art-making is a constantly challenging occupation, but it can be fun!

See you next week, john.  

John Murray classes week of August 6 2012

Wed. the 8th we will have a model (male)  I have been unable to get one for Mon. this term.

If you are signed up for Mon. and want to work from a model please call the office (617 964 3424) and make arrangements to attend that additional class. My recently discovered interest in the work of Francis Bacon pushed me to get a male model, something I rarely do, and I hope you find the male body an interesting metaphorical starting point. We will; however have to pay the model ourselves since there was no model fee included in tuition for the Summer terms. See you next week. john.

John Murray classes week of July 30, 2012

from Cabbage Gardens

from Cabbage Gardens

By Susan Howe b. 1937 Susan Howe

The past

will overtake   

alien force   

our house   

formed

of my mind   

to enter

explorer

in a forest   

of myself

for all

my learning   

Solitude

quiet

and quieter   

fringe

of trees

by a river

bridges black   

on the deep   

the heaving sea   

a watcher stands

to see her ship   

winging away   

Thick noises

merge in moonlight   

dark ripples   

dissolving

and

defining

spheres

and

snares

             Place of importance as in the old days

stood on the ramparts of the fort

                                                 the open sea outside   

alone with water-birds and cattle

                        knee-deep in a stream

grove of reeds

               herons watching from the bank

henges

      whole fields honeycombed with souterrains   

human

                        bones through the gloom

       whose sudden mouth

surrounded my face

                      a thread of blue around the coast   

                                                         feathery moon   

eternity swallows up time

                                     peaceable as foam

                        O cabbage gardens

summer’s elegy

                        sunset survived

Welcome to the first week of  Late Summer Supercharged Painting.

Here's a Summer-ish poem in the postmodern genre of poet Susan Howe. It is full of imagery.

I wonder if you can find a painting here. An unfamiliar picture that explores the surprising world of visual juxtaposition and Postmodern surrealism. 

John Murray classes week of July 23, 2012

547 West 21st Street, Chelsea
Through Aug. 3
This inspired show is accompanied by a brochure that mimics the cover design of “October,” the left-leaning bible of art theory, and has a title to match. But the ideas therein are derived from the brothers Chico, Groucho, Gummo, Harpo and Zeppo.
Organized by Jacob and Jens Hoffmann, the exhibition is partly a sincere tribute; ample space is devoted to Marx Brothers films, photographs and ephemera. In the entrance corridor are two paintings by Harpo, including a charmingly folksy view of a bullring.
Also here, however, are wisecracking works by four contemporary artists and one modern one (Duchamp, naturally). Some of these figures, like Rodney Graham, are known as pranksters in their own right; others merely share a target with the Marxes, as is apparent when Jack Goldstein’s looped film of the MGM lion, “Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer” (1975), is screened opposite the classic bit in which Groucho, Chico and Harpo roar and squeak.
In Richard Prince’s painting series “You Bet Your Life,” mustaches, noses and eyebrows become floating compositional elements: Groucho glasses envisioned by Malevich, perhaps. They’re joined by Duchamp’s well-known Mona Lisa with a mustache, “L.H.O.O.Q.,” which in this context looks more goofy than ribald.

The youngest artist here, Tim Lee, made a two-monitor video installation specifically for the show. Based on the mirror scene in “Duck Soup,” it shows Mr. Lee mimicking his own movements from one screen to another and is a wonderfully subtle bit of slapstick. It reminds you that humor is an underrated ingredient in Conceptual art, as does a quote from Groucho that’s stenciled on the gallery wall: “If any form of pleasure is exhibited, report to me, and it will be prohibited.”

Next week  try a painting of the Marx Brothers or Uncle Karl. See you then, john.

John Murray classes week of July 16, 2012

Next week my wife, Mary, and I have tickets to Cirque Du Soleil on Wednesday night, so Bill StGeorge will be covering the class for me that night.

Monday I will be there and thought a Picasso acrobat idea might interest you. The stark and simple figure I uploaded is a great minimalist example of how complexity can be handled and composed. The incredible positions that gymnasts and acrobats can achieve are beautifully expressed in a compressed black and white design.
Next week try a simplified picture of a complex subject: a car, a person, a face, a figure, an animal and do it in black and white. See you next week. john. 

John Murray classes week of July 11, 2012

It's Summer! I've always loved this 1939 Picasso painting, "Night fishing at Antibes". A great description of a spooky activity with all the beauty and terror of a Summer adventure. Of course while Picasso was painting it, Hitler was invading Poland and the Holocaust and the world were about to explode. Life is beyond the artist's control but our work is ours...next week try a picture of a powerful (to you) Summer experience...don't be literal, take the concept and describe it in PAINT. See you next week, john.