this is our garden

"Traditionally the ornament is considered peripheral but essential to the autonomy of art, essential to the pleasure of looking at beautiful and well rendered things, and peripheral in the sense that decorative elements such as filigree and arabesques are often located within the frame of the picture. When they appear in the picture they are part of architectural details and backgrounds, therefore subaltern to the subject. Thomas Murray treats the ornament with the same respect and formal reverence that he dedicates to his main subject; the human body. Murray's work energizes the agents of the ornament by making them into a theme, that is; a central topic to his narrative. We can call it; the figuration of the supplemental. By bringing the margins to the center, Murray is perpetrating an act of defiance against painting by questioning it's established hierarchy of content. ("Thinking Through Craft", by Glenn Adamson. NY: Berg, 2007) The final result refers back to the sometimes inflated intentions of painting by its allegiance to at least one defined style. I am thinking here of Surrealism and its psychological space and lyrical figuration. This aspect is clearly illustrated with the introduction of the other subject in his painting; the human figure. The body is the arena of all suffering and joy and its presence in the work reminds of us of the surrealistic cult of life. One of the ways he does this is by making the ornamental patterns into expansive fields of color that are not abstract and lends to them a majesty in itself antagonistic to their marginal position. Another of his strategies is to make his figures inhabit spaces filled with those fluctuating forms. The narrative quality of his work comes from the book of Genesis. This is then the ecology of Paradise, that we imagine it as composed of luxurious vegetation, but Murray represents with his patterns made of lavish fields of color. There is Adam and Eve, and sometimes it is as if both patterns and their bodies were made of the same material; color. The naked figures inhabiting this decorated paradise are themselves in search of some existential illumination. Their beauty and inquisitive stance suggest a similar paradox as the one plaguing the supplemental but essential qualities of the ornament. His process is apparent in these paintings. It is as if he's inside those filigrees, enlarging them with a magnifying glass and painstakingly working them into refinement. His work has been like that for quite some time, but in this series there is more of a sense of completion. They are more resolved than previous attempts that appear less so. He told me; "Though many of the paintings are left unfinished, to push them further is also unnecessary and because of that I don't do it." I have seen in his studio many of those works that appeared abandoned midcourse after what I presume was a laborious handling. As somebody who knows his work from some years I can tell you that behind these finished works there is a legion of others who did not make it. But in this series the works are concluded as if after the many attempts he has found a way of painting that is comfortable. But he told me he's not quite there yet. And here is another characteristic of my friend; he abhors idleness and seeks perfection, never satisfied or ceases to work amid the trials and joys of life, the stuff still comes out ever better. " Justo Redondo