Russell Aldo Murray
By Rose Oluronke
Russell A. Murray’s artwork contains numerous ideas, emotions, personal experiences and stories which are manifested into bold strokes of color, abstract forms, patterns and lines. Infused with a tremendous amount of energy, the forms and images in his pieces seem to emerge from the surface and enter the viewer’s subconscious.
Murray’s artwork varies from works on canvas and paper to mixed media assemblages and installations. The extensive range in his visual art practice reflects the complexities of the human condition and the African American experience. The emotive impulses in Murray’s work range from moving sentimentality and global awareness in pieces such as Prayerscape that features prayers by various people from around the world, to the biting socio-political commentary found in the mixed media assemblages Angry White Mail, 1996 and War, 2004.
Murray’s work also reveals numerous artistic influences. Shadrack, Meshac and Abendnego, 2005, and NightWind, 2005, follow the Abstract Expressionist tradition, while the colors, brush strokes and markings in Murray’s Skyscraper series are reminiscent of Chinese landscape paintings. This series also provides a more lush visual description of what is often viewed as being harsh, mechanical and cold.
Russell A. Murray’s works are in private and permanent collections of institutions such as the African American Museum of Cleveland, Ohio; the James E. Lewis Museum, Baltimore, Maryland; and the Morris Museum in Morristown, New Jersey. He is the recipient of numerous awards and grants such as the Geraldine Dodge Foundation: Folk Art in the School Project, Morris County in 2002 and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship for Sculpture in 2000. In addition to being a fine artist, Russell A. Murray is also a curator and collector. He has organized exhibitions that featured the work of notable African American artists such as Elizabeth Catlett at Paul Robeson Gallery, Newark, and the Morris Museum, Morris County, New Jersey. Murray has worked extensively to broaden the appreciation of art, and in his support of those working to improve our community. He has served on the boards of directors and committees of arts organizations including the National Conference of Artists, the Newark Museum, Art in the Atrium, Inc., and the Minority Arts Assembly. As Vice President of the Minority Arts Assembly, an organization founded in Trenton to promote African-American culture and to expand the New Jersey State Museum collection of African-American art, he helped acquire the works of noted African-American artists. Among these are artists Norman Lewis, Horace Pippin, Selma Burke, Jacob Lawrence, and Rex Goreleigh.
Writer: Rose Oluronke is an artist and writer currently pursuing her PhD in African American and Black British Photography.
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