Film “Dad’s in Heaven with Nixon” and Reception: Friday, August 5th
Screening at 5 p.m. and Reception following at 6:30 p.m.
All are welcome, please register by calling the Library at 631-653-4224 ext. 101

Using photographs from found sources as a reference, Chris Murray has been creating paintings in his unique style for more than 35 years. He builds his architecture-based works with pieced-together paper, acrylic paint, and, most importantly, a pencil and ruler. While the varied buildings and structures of New York City are traditionally his focus, Chris has also produced a series of paintings devoted to Southampton, where the Murray family began summering in the 1920s.

Chris is autistic, and one of the distinguishing characteristics of his work is its near obsessive focus on the architecture and linear formation of the buildings he depicts. His attention to the geometric, brick-by-brick exterior of each building stands in strong contrast to his hastily rendered depictions of trees, people and the streets they inhabit.

In his review of Chris’s 2002 one-man show in New York, Ken Johnson of The New York Times wrote: “With rulers, pencils and paint and a focus driven in part by autism, Mr. Murray makes detailed, highly ordered yet unfussily immediate pictures of Manhattan buildings looming over busily trafficked streets. The artist … refers to photographs found in books and magazines to reproduce landmarks … on sheets of paper to which he glues extensions as space requires.”

Chris rolls and folds his sometimes quite large pieces (4×6 feet) to fit into his backpack for transportation and storage. This practice, coupled with his numerous and fastidious reworkings of each piece, gives the wrinkled paper an almost sculptural presence. And all of Chris’s paintings invariably have at least this much in common: The sky is a shimmering blue, the clouds are full and white and fluffy, and the sun is brightly shining. It’s always a beautiful day in Chris Murray’s paintings.

For this exhibit, Chris has chosen some Quogue and Westhampton “landmarks” as his latest subjects.

Tom Murray, Chris’s brother, is the writer, producer and director of the documentary film, Dad’s in Heaven with Nixon, a heartwarming but bittersweet story about Chris and his family. Their great-grandfather was Thomas E. Murray, the inventor, and their grandfather was John F. Murray, a commissioner of the Port Authority under Franklin Roosevelt. From his grandfather came the legacy of bipolar illness which would impact subsequent generations of the family, most notably his own father who lost his fortune and the family’s homes and who drowned in the ocean at age 52. The film incorporates home movies from the 1950s and 1960s that capture the brothers’ seemingly idyllic and affluent childhood in Southampton. The filmmaker contrasts his father’s dysfunctionality with Chris’s challenges, while highlighting their mother’s determination to make sure that Chris has as full a life as possible.

Quogue Library Art Committee members Lulie Morrisey and Cristina Kepner are the chairs for this exhibit, which will be on display from August 2 through 31.

Film “Dad’s in Heaven with Nixon” and Reception: Friday, August 5th
Screening at 5 p.m. and Reception following at 6:30 p.m.
All are welcome, please register by calling the Library at 631-653-4224 ext. 101