by Jef Rouner
There’s an old joke about abstract art that goes like this: how do you know when you’re done? The style of art is inherently fluid and chaotic, a literal representation of things that are intangible or in motion. Whether it’s Jackson Pollock’s dribbles or Joan Mitchell’s dreamlike landscapes, there is an inherent absurdity to abstraction because it’s a maelstrom forced into stasis.
This is one area where Texas artist Gary T. Murphy stands out. His acrylic and resin paintings are a screaming mass of bright hues that look like a cross between a 1980s pop album cover and whatever that weird meteor was in H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Colour Out of Space.” If someone could cut apart a rainbow and mount it like a moth on a board, it would resemble a typical Murphy work.
However, those colors aren’t allowed to run free like Pollock or shift in and out like Mitchell. Instead, they consume the white space of his canvases. Murphy cages his chaotic shades, usually in quadrangular portals in the center. Sometimes, he binds the designs in bars or other straight lines that cut through the swirls, but he prefers the portal approach. It’s an incredible juxtaposition between order and chaos.
Murphy uses this style for two reasons. One, the bright colors just make him, and other people, feel good. Two, imposing the artistic limits calms his own mind.
“There’s a ton of chaos in the world, just all this craziness going on,” he said in a phone interview. “If I can paint in certain colors, or paint a certain piece, that can bring a minute or two of joy to someone seeing my art, then I’ve done my job.”
The work is certainly pretty, which is reason enough to like it, but it’s also doing what abstraction is supposed to do: capture the ephemeral. Murphy recalls an early show where he found a man in tears looking at a painting. The man told Murphy that he had ADHD, and that the canvas was the best illustration of what he felt in his own mind.
“He said this piece somehow grounded him because it reminded him that it’s going to be okay,” said Murphy. “It just reminded me on the spot, live in person, that I’m on the right path.”
The chaos makes even more sense if you know Murphy’s history. His life reads like a movie, or even several movies. The 55-year-old artist was born in Houston and spent most of his adult years as a serial entrepreneur. He founded companies left and right like Houston Court Services, Mach 5 Couriers, Arisa Global, 6 Degrees Lounge, and Little Soya. Some of these thrived, others foundered, but his hands were rarely idle.
When not running companies, he was working in nightclubs, tracking people down as a private investigator, and traveling the world. He also collected art, working his way into the art scene as an appreciator.
One person he bonded with is Washington Ho, the CEO of White House Global Properties and star of the HBO series House of Ho. Murphy and Ho’s friendship started nearly 25 years ago, and since Murphy began painting in 2023, Ho has collected several canvases.
“In the midst of the world of chaos, it’s the way I see his pain, but then there’s always a beautiful color that touches me at the end of the rainbow,” said Ho in a phone interview. “It touches your heart. He’s been one of my inspirations and mentors. I admire his courage to step outside the box and to do this at this age. To be able to watch him grow and transition and the courage to be himself and embrace his story. That’s what I amazing to me.”
Now living in Dallas, Murphy bides his time between creation and business. His strange works can take weeks to complete, shifting dramatically as his mood changes during the process. Luckily, his long stint as a patron and supporter of the arts has held doors open for him to become an artist himself.
He’s even working on establishing the next generation. His most recent show was called All Eyes on Her, a celebration of female artists in the Greater Houston Area. The event featured Blakely Bering, Janice Bond, Leslie Ann Cruz, Katharine Ligon, Amy Malkan, and Sneha Merchant. Tickets sold out in a matter of days.
There’s definitely a hunger for what Murphy produces. Information itself has long felt unsteady, and tumultuous times make everything chaotic. Combining his bright colors with the hard, sturdy boundaries of bars and portals makes the chaos seem manageable. It’s an abstraction of hope.
“If I’m kind of down not feeling great either physically or mentally then I’ll paint with slightly darker colors, but as that piece evolves, I’ve got all that swirling kind of in my head before it comes out into that finished abstract piece,” Murphy said.
