Judith Murray’s new body of work results from a conscious decision to revisit her past. Her work of the 1970s had a crisp, clean, hard-edged sensibility that contrasts starkly with the expressive impasto that has become her defining formal characteristic. Floating above the mass of her trademark hefty brushstrokes in their gutsy, raucous hues we now see refined, elegant, eccentrically geometric shapes in a clean, bright palette. A breakthrough for the artist and a career pinnacle, this new style clarifies a disparate œuvre in a synthesis of the rough and the smooth. DAVID COHEN
Judith Murray, A Night in Tunisia, 2011. Oil on linen, 72 x 77 inches. Courtesy of Sundaram Tagore Gallery.
Judith Murray: New Paintings at Sundaram Tagore Gallery New York, 547 West 27th Street, between 10th and 11th avenues, 212 677 4520, May 10 to June 9, 2102. Cohen’s comment is adapted from his essay in the accompanying catalogue.
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