Featured Artwork: Michele Ann Murtaugh
Salomé
Oil on linen
72 x 72 in.
2020
Available from 33 Contemporary, Chicago
In Michele Ann Murtaugh’s figurative narrative paintings, her subjects address the current condition of human intimacy, the desire of it and the lack of it. She combines realist human form with surrealistic atmospheric nuances to give the viewer the feeling of being in the subconscious. Her large scale oil paintings combine delicate, refined and crude brush work to intensify the psychological contradiction of surrender with immediacy and impatience. Her subjects are often nude or costumed in inorganic fantastic materials. They can be found masked or uncomfortably gazing back at the viewer. The paintings mirror our beautiful and imperfect attempt to connect and be accepted.
