Will Murchison makes layered, abstract paintings that dissolve mythic and historic imagery into a framework of formal abstraction. The works rely on the layering of materials, the intuitive balance of shape and color, and the tension between formal abstraction and narrative imagery.

Murchison’s influences include the all-over paintings of Abstract Expressionism, Julie Mehretu’s organizational grandeur, Mark Bradford’s worked surfaces, and Elliot Hundley’s dense assemblages.  

In his paintings, Murchison explores the boundary between abstraction and narrative with the goal of creating fragmented history paintings. Formal abstraction serves as the structure for artworks that, on close inspection, delve into narrative derived from common myths and histories.   

With a background in paper collage, Murchison culls imagery from lifestyle and fashion magazines.  He cuts these images into highly stylized shapes that disrupt the objective aesthetic of found imagery.  These cut images serve as templates for an underpainting that dictates his initial composition.  Murchison arranges his found images to obliquely reference common western myths.  The subject matter serves as a guiding reminder to look outside himself to the past for inspiration and to push his painting to a fundamental level that corresponds with the mythic theme. 

In the desire to merge his narrative with the physical painting, Murchison has developed a technique for making sheets of acrylic paint that can be cut and reapplied to his paintings.  These skins of paint allow him to capture the accident and energy of spills and gestural painting without losing the collage artist’s ability to manipulate and arrange materials. In applying the acrylic sheets to the painting, Murchison intuitively responds to the underlying imagery and the surface of the skin with a combination of collage, further painting, and mosaic application of acrylic pieces.  As the painting progresses, features of his narrative imagery and the surfaces of the acrylic sheets are both enhanced and erased.  Often the imagery becomes so buried that its translation is impossible.  However, the chosen mythic narrative is a polestar that serves as an outside intelligence to guide Murchison’s intuitive process. 

The resulting painting is an object with a dense surface geography that is at once intricate and rudimentary.  The artwork joins highly controlled craft with the beauty of chance.   And by forcing a mythological narrative through his process of making, the painting itself becomes a physical talisman that echoes the ethereal nature of the mythic past.  

Murchison was born in Dallas, Texas in 1987 and lives and works in Dallas and is represented by Erin Cluley Gallery.  He obtained a B.A. in Art History from the University of Dallas in 2010 and a J.D. from S.M.U. in 2014.  His work is included in the collection of the University of Dallas.