Erin Murray, originally of Waynesboro, Virginia, currently resides in Baltimore, Maryland. She attended the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia where she earned a BA in Painting and Drawing in 2006. In 2009, she completed her MFA in Painting at the University of New Hampshire.
She currently paints full time and focuses her energy on creating work that speaks to her social/political/personal interests.
My current work is about our roles. It is about information and misinformation, about creating a world where we are unsure of our knowledge. It is a world of questions. I paint to repetitiously clarify for myself that the lines and borders are solid but always move. In painting, I find freedom and security in implied figure narrative. I work from my imagination to create a world that reflects only the elements that have left residue in my mind. Severe mark-making, gestural line, scale shifts, and odd and unpredictable color choices in the work are elements used to create interest, curiosity and thought about our common narratives.
I am obsessed with the ways social hierarchies create limitations and opportunities for its members and pariahs.
I paint about women because I am fascinated by the relationship between femininity and feminism. Intoxicated by the confusing dichotomies and concerned that each choice relays some secret meaning, I paint to clarify.
I paint about men. I paint about limits society creates for men. I paint to understand the ways men exploit and are exploited.
I paint about society, about roles and rules. The roles are simple and complex. The list is engrained in our minds and hearts. We know how we are to show ourselves and what we must hide. We know what we know and declare our confidence in our decisions.
My work’s narrative content directly reflects issues we, as a society, mask and avoid and I hope for the work to speak to a diverse population of viewers.