Live – Emerson Murray
Emerson Murray’s figurative abstract paintings are great conversation starters. Ask five people to create a story based on one of his works, and you’re likely to end up with five completely different narratives—all of them equally valid.
Bits of Time
“I approach [each painting] as a story or a legend, and I sort of boil that down to an emotion and throw that out there,” says Murray, who works with both acrylic and oil paints. “If people pick up on it, that’s cool; if they have their own [interpretation], that’s cool. I just want people to look at it and feel something.”
“Up To”
Murray gets his artistic inspiration from a variety of sources. “I’ll hear a story, read a news article, remember a Greek myth, hear a song or hear a story of two punk rock girls going off and causing trouble, and then I’ll sort of distill that down,” he explains.
Forming
Another way that the artist stays in direct contact with his materials is by mixing his own oil paints from dry pigments that he buys from a shop in San Francisco. By throwing things like sand, dirt and flocking into the mix, he is able to get a wide array of colors and textures unavailable from store-bought paints. “I feel like a mad scientist or something when I have them all in glass jars,” he states. “It’s horribly messy, but really fun.”
Murray, who went to film school rather than art school, takes an emotional approach to painting as opposed to an academic one. “There’s rarely a light source in my paintings, and I don’t concentrate on shadow,” he notes. “I’m concentrating on the juxtaposition between the colors and the shapes, really, and then how that affects emotion.”
La Olvidada
Murray’s participation in this year’s Open Studios comes after a hugely successful debut last year. Contributing to the buzz that surrounded his 2014 exhibit was the fact that a week before the event, the death metal band Cretin had released an album whose cover art Murray had created. “Through the whole death metal scene, there were lots of articles and interviews, and people were interested in my art, suddenly, from a really weird perspective,” he recalls with a laugh.
Emerson Murray
I Hadn’t Saved a Human Being
The painter’s 2014 Open Studios exhibit provoked a wide range of reactions. As he recounts, the first customer to view the display bought a $900 painting, and “the second visitor came in and said, ‘Umm… I like nice art,’ and then walked out.” The third viewer made no comment; rather, she simply shook her head and left the building. “It was like the ultimate ups and the ultimate lows!” Murray chuckles. “This year, hopefully it’ll be a little more even-keeled.”
Mixed as those reactions might have been, they were indications that Murray had achieved his goal of provoking strong emotional responses. His display at this year’s Open Studios is likely to do the same.
See more of Emerson’s work at emersonmurray.com.
Her Might
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