James Austin Murray American, b. 1969

James Austin Murray’s black paintings, created with ivory black oil paint, are little like searching in a dark room with a flashlight that only brightens the few inches in front of it. Feeling our way along the walls, trying to identify the furniture and layout of the place we found ourselves in. The paintings look like a landscape you could walk right into. It’s a visual place that is both disconcerting and overpoweringly seductive.

As a NYC firefighter during the 9/11 attack in New York City, Murray paints because it is how he justify his life following this atrocious day. Nothing else seems to hold up. He loves paint – love the smell of oil paint and the warm buttery consistency it has while it’s being pushed along by the brush. His current work is both about the paint and the light that reflects on and in it. If you spend time with one of his paintings you might find yourself thinking about the light in the room, with you and that painting. Murray says, “Sometimes the dark is where you find the best surprises.”

James Austin Murray lives and works in New York City and Kingston, NY. Murray was, for 11 years, a firefighter, working in the South Bronx, Harlem, the West Village, and on the Lower East Side. He taught at Parsons School of Design, New York.