Hebden Bridge Web

Artsmill Exhibitions: Where Earth Meets Sky

A collection of expressive landscape paintings by contemporary painter, Claire Murray

Tuesday, 15 January 2019

Murray's work embraces the rich and dramatic landscapes and seascapes of the North of England, concerning mainly ideas of memory and recall, but also natural history and ecology, politics and environmental issues. Ideas of exposure and sanctuary, a sense of place, fleeting memories and illusion are explored through recalling the residual memory of a place, the sense of space, atmosphere, light, texture and shape that lingers after one has left.  

Murray considers her paintings to be an attempt to explore  "ways to patch together a recollection of a place, not merely to recreate a perfect representation, more a feeling or a fleeting recall."

She is very interested in the idea of recalling 'authenticity' through memory in a digital age, where we edit, select and construct an 'ideal' image through social media and constant photographic recording.  The idea that this might create a 'false' or 'constructed' memory, rather than the experiential sensation of actually being 'there'.  Claire works with both water-based acrylics and oils, thinly applying paint over textured grounds, such as plaster and gesso, using a combination of thin washes, fine line and expressive paint application methods.

 

After completing her BA (Hons) and then a Masters' Degree in Fine Art at Northumbria University in Newcastle, in 1995, Claire continued her art practice in the north east for some years, before relocating to Yorkshire where she has taught art and design at Huddersfield New College since 2004.  She also delivers regular classes and workshops at Globe Arts in Slaithwaite.

• Artsmill website