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About the Artist

Linda Murray spent her childhood in a small town in northwest Texas. The devastating drought of the 1950s shaped her views (and perhaps, warped her mind). She graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1970. In 1979, she moved to the Abilene/Buffalo Gap area in west Texas. She maintained a studio in the Center for Contemporary Arts in downtown Abilene for over 25 years, where she was a Signature Artist Member. She now lives and paints in Round Rock, Texas. She has many paintings scattered across the U.S. in private and public collections.

About the Art

I paint in series because there is always more to paint about than can be contained in one painting. Even though I might feel the subject matter of a series has been exhausted, I often return to it after a long period of time with an altered or renewed perspective. Nothing is ever really ended, just shelved for later.

 

My work contains a strong sense of irony and conflict. I seek to capture a feeling for the rhythm of life underneath the arbitrary structures imposed on us by time and place. Earlier in my career, I decided I wanted to produce art that explored universal themes, not personal ones. With maturity, I have come to realize that those universal themes are also personal ones -- struggles and dichotomies that face us all. Most of us want the same things: peace, love, passion, and the continued existence of a healthy environment. We all fear the same things, too, and all the things we fear can be summed up by the word "loss." Although I have often tried to inject a little humor to make these sometimes unsettling images a little more palatable, I hope that my painting style has evolved into a somewhat more nuanced, deeply layered form.

 

For the past couple of years, I have explored the intersection of memory, perception, and reality. The possibilities presented by attempting to visually represent non-visual concepts are endless.

 

--- Linda Murray, 2016

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