Elizabeth Murray, 2002-2003

Elizabeth Murray
Maurice Sanchez, printer
2002-2003

Workshop: October 22-24, 2003

Elizabeth Murray earned her BFA from the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA from Mills College. She has received numerous awards and recognitions, including the Skowhegan Medal in Painting in 1986, the Larry Aldrich Prize in Contemporary Art in 1993, and a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Award in 1999. Her critically acclaimed work is featured in many collections. Murray is primarily known for her large, brightly colored abstract paintings that play with the traditional boundaries of a two-dimensional canvas. A mixture of unconventional shapes as well as nightmarish, goofy, and familiar objects, Murray’s paintings powerfully explore psychological themes.

Workshop Director Dwight Pogue first invited Murray to participate in a workshop at Smith in the late 1980s. Pogue finally convinced the artist to deliver a lecture at Smith in early 2003, after the completion of the Brown Fine Arts Center. Following a tour of the new printmaking studios, and a visit with Pogue’s offset printmaking class, Murray agreed to do a workshop with Maurice Sanchez in the fall. Using printer Maurice Sanchez’s technique of pulling multiple strong monotypes from a single plate, Murray created a group of monotypes with similar imagery. A single compositional drawing was used in the creation of three series of monotypes. A digital print of the drawing was placed under a Mylar sheet, providing a base on which Murray drew her compositions. After each plate was exhausted, she reworked the image, creating the three variants.

Elizabeth Murray. American, 194 –2007 –