NEW LONDON, CONN.- The Lyman Allyn Art Museum announced the opening of James B Murphy Abstracts, on view from January 25 through March 24, 2019.

James B Murphy Abstracts, the latest exhibit in Lyman Allyn’s Near :: New contemporary series, presents the pathway Murphy took from the representational to more suggestive but still identifiable images, and then beyond the suggestive to the pure abstract. “I became aware of his interest in nonrepresentational work almost by conversational accident but soon urged him on after I saw his compelling initial forays,” said Sam Quigley, Director of the Lyman Allyn Art Museum. “Beyond painterly aspiration, his confidence and directness has beguiled me and others with increasing urgency in the relatively short time he followed this particular Muse.”

James B Murphy began as a representational artist, having studied classical technique at the Lyme Academy of Fine Art in the early 2000s. Two years ago, he started experimenting with abstracts in his studio in East Haddam, CT, forming and arranging shapes with paper, Adobe Photoshop, and acrylic color samples.

Says Murphy, “What interests me is the virtue of an image. Why do I find one image exciting and a similar one dull? While the answer may relate to composition, color, rhythm, incompleteness, suggestion, and other variables, I believe the source of an abstract painting’s strength must be uncertain.”

James B Murphy has had three successive careers: first as a journalist with TIME Magazine, then as a playwright [Promise, Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre, Wellfleet, MA, 2010 and The Grand Design, Shetler Studios, New York City, 2012]; and currently as an artist. Exhibitions include the William Benton Museum of Art, Storrs, CT; The Lyme Academy of Fine Art, Old Lyme, CT; the Lyme Art Association; and numerous private venues including one person shows at hospitals and assisted living communities throughout Southeastern Connecticut.