In 2013, Greg Murr discovered a group of forgotten photographs stored on his hard drive. They were images of a single peony cut from his mother’s garden. While the flower itself was long gone, the pho tos had captured its experience and stirred something within Murr. The body of work descended from a single peony stretches to this day, and continues to reveal itself anew with what can be found between the petals.
Decontextualised, abstracted, and extracted from their environment, Murr’s blooms invite the viewer to see patterns present throughout the expanse of the natural world. Looking into the curl of a flower, one can see the spiraling arms of a galaxy, small jetties in a stream, a tropical storm as seen from above, or the lines of a snail’s shell. Murr’s peonies are specific and ubiquitous, an observation honoring patterns in nature. They are the flowers themselves and also the entire universe.
There is beauty in Murr’s micro-level meditations on the peonies summoning the cosmos. The pure aes thetic delight and the forms themselves invite the viewer to appreciate nature from a broader vantage point. With Murr’s guidance, it is possible to step beyond anthropocentrism, the constant narrative of our lives, and the scenarios in which we consume ourselves.
While his flowers harken to images from the outer reaches of scientific exploration, there is a contraven ing pull in to the work by the allure of nuanced light, the atmosphere of individual petals in a compara tively material empty space, the suggestion of something vaguely photographic, and the remarkable lack of evidence of the artist’s hand. Murr is an illusionist. He meticulously constructs these compositions to betray their making, covering his tracks on the way out.
The exhibition title, Fields and Gatherings, draws on multiple and layered meanings. We have fields of vision and fields of peonies; fields of energy and fields of quanta. While fields may record and demarcate that which already exists, “gathering” is an intentional process of curating and assembling, typically done with an agency assigned to living things.
“I want the viewer to find their own universe within my paintings,” says Murr. Fields and Gatherings is the latest in a near decade-long exploration of form, light, shadow, movement, space, and time. We are delighted to exhibit this new body of work at Turner Carroll Gallery.
Nebulae, 2022
on canvas
x 40 x 1.8" diptych
Study 18a, 2022
on canvas
x
Study 17a, 2022
on canvas
Study 16e, 2022
on canvas
x
Study 16f, 2022
on canvas
Material Study 24e, 2022
on canvas
“I'm interested in the aesthetics of physical laws acting upon the natural world, and in acknowledging some of the underlying frameworks that define our reality. Fluid dynamics, climatological systems, botanical growth, and even human constructs all guide my thinking as their visual records draw attention to our habitat.
In my recent paintings, peony blossoms were initially meant to be a tool for bridging the garden with disparate cosmological phenomena. I wanted to use such familiar and accessible forms to reflect upon things vastly beyond human proportion. As this work has developed, I realize that beneath this is more fundamentally a desire to fabricate an experience that can transport us to a different place of awareness, one that expresses both space and temporality, and that endures ongoing examination. I want to offer an experience that we want to live among and return to—whether a refuge or a guide. Through this effort, I hope to better acknowledge the relative brevity of our time here, and our capacity for wonder.”
- Greg Murr
Greg Murr is a visual artist concentrating in drawing, painting and print media. Responding to local phenomena, he looks at discrete systems that make up our surroundings and how their structures shape our perceptions, ideas, and behavior. Murr’s work has appeared in exhibitions at the Austin Museum of Art (2011), the Arkansas Art Center (2008) and the Whitney Museum of American Art (2005). He has twice served as a Visiting Artist/ Instructor at the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica in Venice, and has been a Resident Fellow at the MacDowell Colony, the Robert M. MacNamara Foundation and the Morris Graves Foundation. His work is in permanent collections that include the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Sheldon Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Tamarind Institute and Flatbed Press have published edi tions of his work. Murr received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of New Mexico (1997) and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Wake Forest University (1993).
Árvore Cooperativa, Porto, Portugal
Davis Museum, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA
Sheldon Museum of Art, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE
Four Seasons Hotel George V, Paris, France
University of New Mexico Art Museum, Albuquerque, NM
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA
Progressive Collection, Mayfield Village, OH
Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, NM
Scuola Internazionale di Grafica, Venice, Italy
U.S. Embassy, Astana, Kazakhstan
Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
2013 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, Columbus, OH
2007 Residency, Flatbed Press, Austin, TX
2004 Residency, Tamarind Institute, Albuquerque, NM
2003 Residency, Robert M. MacNamara Foundation, Westport Island, ME
Residency, Morris Graves Foundation, Loleta, CA
2001 Residency, MacDowell Colony (Josephine Mercy Heathcote Fellow), Peterborough, NH
2000 Residency, Flatbed Press, Austin, TX
1997 Fellowship, Scuola Internazionale di Grafica (teaching appointment), Venice, Italy
turnercarrollgallery.com
Santa Fe, NM
505.986.9800