BIO
Maureen Murray (b. Providence, Rhode Island, United States) creates abstract paintings and pastel drawings influenced by her native rural Rhode Island. She earned a BA from Connecticut College in New London, CT, and an MAT from Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, RI, and also attended the Art Students League of New York.
She received a Juror’s Award in the American Drawing Biennial at Muscarelle Museum of Art, Williamsburg, VA, curated by May Stevens, and had her first solo exhibition at Hera Gallery and Educational Foundation, Wakefield, RI, sponsored in part by Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. She also created the characters, artwork, and storyline for the animated short film On the Moon at Nickelodeon Animation Studios in New York, NY, which screened at the Chicago International Children’s Film Festival, Chicago, IL, Brooklyn Academy of Music BAMkids Film Festival, Brooklyn, NY, and international venues, including Melbourne International Children’s Film Festival, and later broadcast on Plum TV, New York, NY. Murray’s recent exhibitions include James May Gallery, Milwaukee, WI, Masur Museum of Art, Monroe, LA, Imago Foundation for the Arts, Wickford, RI, and others. Her 2024 exhibitions include Ely Center of Contemporary Art, New Haven, CT, and a solo exhibition, Teravarna Fine Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA. Murray currently lives and works in Rhode Island.
STATEMENT
My lyrical abstract paintings explore the ephemeral beauty of our changing natural world. Influenced by my native rural Rhode Island, my expressive canvases evoke the fragile landscapes and wild flora where New England forests meet the Atlantic Ocean. My subdued palette lends itself to transitions of subtle and pastel tones to convey the intimate spaces where woodland wildflowers persist in meadow edges.
Each painting begins with delicate, translucent layers that transform into compositions, each canvas becoming its own world. Through fluid, spontaneous brushstrokes, I form organic shapes that reflect our shifting environment, depicting natural forms in soft, muted shades. I blend pigments to create a sense of serenity, infusing pieces with gentle movement and transience, often through various painting techniques that enhance a dreamlike quality in compositions that capture fleeting moments in nature.
My approach grows from early paintings where delicate layers of paint enclosed echoes of early New England literary voices, through environmental sculpture and pastel works on paper, elegiac images of ghostly wild flora against coal-black backgrounds. These works evoke remembrances of nature's impermanence.
The natural world has long been my artistic focus, evolving alongside current environmental consciousness. My paintings invite viewers to pause and reflect, fostering contemplation of nature's vulnerability.
