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Virginia Murray's current exhibition at the Good News Cafe Gallery showcases her wide-ranging works in ceramics, majolica and raku, inspired and influenced by her extensive travels in Europe, Russia, China, and southern and southeast Asia. Her works have received acceptances for scores of large juried shows in the New England region and won numerous awards over the past 15 years.
Murray on her artistic philosophy:
"Having studied both painting and sculpture for five years and worked primarily in oil painting and printmaking, I had an 'epiphany' in Italy in 1985. (Perhaps it was the impact of seeing so much wonderful wall art and sculpture simultaneously.) On return, I immediately began working with clay, at first combined with painted surfaces, later with sculptural figures -- men, women, animals.
"Recent trips to Thailand, Java, Bali and India, as well as visits to Italy, France, Spain and other countries, have interested me more and more in the ways that different religions have influenced and shaped art. From depictions of Hellenic and Roman gods, through early Christian, medieval and Russian Orthodox saints, to the thousands of Hindu gods described in the Indian sagas, the Maaharbarata and Ramayana, all are imbued with such spirituality, reverence, love and mystery. In Asian countries, stone sculpture and carving are the primary means.
"So perhaps my 'philosophy' is to give my work some of this feeling drawn from these many sources and enhanced by raku firing, which adds qualities of stone, earth, fire and natural forms to each piece."
Murray on the art of raku:
"Raku is magic for me -- an exciting, risky and even dangerous way to fire.
"I see an artist's work as a bridge. It is a bridge between the past and the future, linking the collective unconscious and our whole body of historical, cultural and artistic knowledge to the present. It is a bridge between an idea and reality, a bridge between science and intuition, the fields of enery we are immediately aware of and those less easily discerned. It is a bridge between people.
"For me, it is also a bridge linking my unknown self to what I already know, a process as much about who I am as it is what clay is about. Clay and raku are a wonderful celebration of what life is about -- it has to do with where we came from, where we are today, and where we hope to go.
"The dialogue with the clay is very important to me. It has its own language and I am continually learning to listen to what it has to say. It is a marriage between my two hands and the clay, constantly discovering, pushing, expanding and refining both its limitations and possibilities as well as my own.
"It is quiet, personal, hard, fun, exciting, private, frustrating, rewarding. It is a source of great joy and a teacher of humility -- it is a good friend. I think I was looking for raku for a long time and didn't know it; I was so happy when it found me.
"Raku is magic for me. I like having a direct involvement in the transformation process of firing, of having an impact, a responsibility and a contribution to the final product -- which is, after all, a wet ball of mud that my hands have touched, that fire has danced around, combined with good conversation, hopefully good ideas, good luck and good weather."
Biography and exhibitions
Virginia Murray studied painting, sculpture and drawing at the Art Students League in New York, and also has done work in printmaking and etching at the Brookfield Craft Center and the Washington Art Association, both in Connecticut. Previously, she worked as an engineering draftsman during World War II at Edo Aircraft on Long Island and as a dress designer on Seventh Avenue in New York.
After 20 years' experience in painting and printmaking, Virginia has concentrated exclusively over the past 15 years on works in ceramics, majolica and raku, drawing upon her acquired skills in painting, drawing and sculpture. Influences reflect her extensive travels in the Third World, Europe, China and Russia. Symbolisms and forms are drawn from Andean and West African cultures... Gothic decoration and stained-glass fragmented patterns derive from artistic works in European cathedrals... other shapes are derivative from Chinese bronzes and designs, from Russian icons.
Among the many large juried shows at which her works have appeared: the Mattatuck Museum, Connecticut Women Artists, Paint and Clay Club of New Haven, West Hartford Art Leauge, Art of the Northeast USA, and the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts. Exhibitions of her ceramics have been staged in West Hartford, New Preston, Washington (CT) and Woodbury, including a previous showing at the Good News Cafe Gallery. Virginia resides in Woodbury.
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