Nature unfolding
The transparent floral forms in Greg Murr’s paintings may surprise the viewer with their lilting, delicate appearance, as diaphanous as the velvet petals of the most fragile blossom. One thinks of an X-ray or a black-and-white photograph’s subtle tones of grayscale. But the palest of colors emerge the longer you look.
“I’m fascinated by the notion that so much of the observable world exists outside our scope of everyday awareness, yet remains within the limits of our sense perception,” writes Murr, whose exhibition Greg Murr:
A Mediated Garden opens with a 5 p.m. artist reception at Turner Carroll Gallery (725 Canyon Road, 505-986-9800, turnercarrollgallery.com) on Friday, Jan. 31. “At any given moment, phenomena are at play all around us, shaping our surroundings and the parameters of our existence, whether acknowledged, presumed, or missed altogether.”
Darker sections of his compositions suggest a dense stratum of foliage, where the light penetrates the flowers less easily. Murr is interested in revealing the hidden structure of things and uses a specific variety of peony called Bowl of Cream as his subject because of the translucent quality of its blooms, which almost seem to merge into the surrounding environment or into the light. “When I think about Greg’s paintings, the thing that strikes me is the presence of the work. It is ephemeral, light, airy, and full of motion,” says Shastyn Blomquist, Turner Carroll’s gallery director. “Spend a little time in front of a Greg Murr floral painting and tell me about how it feels like the air in the room has become a little fresher.” Greg Murr: A Mediated Garden will be on exhibit through Feb. 23.