Gallery & Studio, April/May 2007 issue

Title: Donal Murray: Dublin through a painter’s Eyes
by DEBORAH FOLLETT

Although all manner of mainstream art styles and movements exist in modern Ireland, as in just about every oter country of the world today, the work of the Dublin-based artist Donal Murray belongs to a particularly genteel and venerable Irish pictorial tradition. Like a latter day colleague of Jack Yates, the painter brother of Ireland’s greatest poet, William Butler Yeats, Murray has painted racetrack scenes and other genre subjects, although his most constant inspiration is the city of Dublin. Three such paintings by Murray are on view in the year-round salon exhibition at Montserrat Gallery, 547 West 27th Street, in Chelsea.

“Capel Street Bridge” is an atmospheric early evening view in which the charms of the city are evoked with impressive skill. Although Murray was known earlier in his career for an impressionistic style, two years spent at the New York Academy of Figurative Art in New York City reportedly gave him new insights into traditional painting techniques. These are very much in evidence in his solid handling of the bridge and the surrounding architecture in this scene. At the same time, Murray’s color choices and evocation of the lights on the bridge and their reflections on the water harks back to his impressionistic phrase by virtue of his ability to capture the precise quality of the moment at dusk when the street lights come on to augment the waning natural light at dusk.

Two other oils apparently give us different angles on the same location. In “The Boat Trip”, a team of five men, perhaps practicing for a race, rows along the river during the daylight hours. Here, too, Murray’s considerable skills as colorist put him in good stead, bringing the scene alive by virtue of the chromatic subtlety with which he evokes the shimmering play of sunlight on the water and the very different way it affects the stone surfaces on the building. Here, as in other paintings, the old buildings of Dublin provide Murray much opportunity to indulge his penchant for the warm, earthy hues which impart to his paintings their mood of misty romanticism.

This mood is particularly poignant in “The New Beginning”, the largest of the three oils on view at Montserrat, which depicts a young blond woman in a sweater and jeans, with a wheeled suitcase beside her, leaning on the railing of a bridge and gazing out at the river and the buildings receding in vanishing perspective along the shoreline, as though wondering what the future has in store. Perhaps she has left home and is embarking on a new life, like one of those spunky yet vulnerable young women in the stories of the Irish writer William Trevor.

In any case, it attests to Donal Murray’s skills as a visual storyteller that he makes one feel a sense of trepidation and concerns for his mere slip of a girl setting out into the world on her own. Indeed, Murray seems almost alone among the new crop of Irish painters in his ability to assimilate the human resonance of his country’s great literary tradition so successfully, without sacrificing any of those purely plastic attributes on which all visual art must ultimately stand or fall.

Leinster Leader, Thursday, 8 February 2007

Title: Seven-room Patrician Extension opened
by CONOR MCHUGH

Pictured at the opening by Brother Camillus of the new
seven classroom extension at the Patrician Secondary
School in Newbridge were: (L-R) Pat O’Leary, Deputy
Principal; Evelyn Miller, Chairperson of the Parents
Association; Donal Murray, a local artist who created
the painting entitled The Spirit of Enlightment, and
School Principal, Peter O’Reilly. Photo: Jimmy Fullam

NEWBRIDGE’S Patrician Brother’s school picked an auspicious day to launch their seven-classroom extension last Friday.

The date was February 2, which is Patrician Founders Day.

“It’s a very important day in our school and an appropriate day to have these proceedings”, the principal Peter O’Reilly told those gathered for the occasion.

“This school was founded by the Patrician Brothers in 1960 to provide second level education to boys from Newbridge and the surrounding area.”

And he described how it had grown from the beginnings in the present Parish Centre “to a school that caters for 600 pupils and approximately 50 teaching staff.”

“Teaching, learning and the promotion of the academic excellence has always been to the force as well as a huge commitment by all staff on a voluntary basis to extracurricular activities has given us young men that have become valued members of society.”

He stressed that improving the facilities, with or without state funding had always been the goal of the school community, Board of Management, teachers, students and parents.

“This building is a continuation of this success.”

The project started a little over two years ago with a building subcommittee of Sean Duggan, Bob Roach, Pat O’Leary, Brother Cormac and Mr. O’Reilly.

He explained that it was felt that a permanent structure was the only viable option, and he noted that from turning the first sod in July the extension had been completed very quickly.

He thanked the teaching staff, the parents’ council, the trustees, Dept of Education and Science, and local politicians who helped.

He also referred to a development fund which had been set up by a predecessor of his, which had given the school the start-up funding.

The extension includes seven rooms, a staff room and toilets. This brings the school’s total, without two prefabs, to 41.

Mr. O’Reilly revealed that is was the long term hope to remove the prefabs from the system.

Senior Prefect David Duggan also spoke at the event. He remarked that the day was a momentous one for all of the students at the school.

“Being a member of the Patrician Community is something we are very proud of and today marks a positive step in the sustained growth of the school.”

He recalled his first day in the school five years ago and being among the first students to reap the benefits of the 2002 extension.
“I did not think about it much then, but the significant efforts of the others in the development of this school have allowed me and the hundreds of other students to benefit from the broad education that we received here.”

When the school started in 1960, there were only 12 students in a small, two-roomed building on Station Road. “While writing this speech my father reminded me that he enrolled in the school in 1964 just four years after its foundation. There were only 24 boys in his first year, a big change from nowadays.”

“Before then it had been uncommon for children to continue on to secondary school after primary school, but as a result of the hard work and diligence of the Patrician Brothers this has long since changed.

Speaking about his experience in the school he remarked that he could not “overestimate the huge influence the Patrician Brothers have had on my life, my father’s life and to have on the students of this school today.”

The New York Times, Sunday, October 31, 2004

Title: At a Park Ave. Church, A "Nice, Friendly Face"

The Rev. George W. Rutler, pastor, of the Church of Our Saviour on Park Avenue and 38th Street, was looking over his church's latest acquisition recently. "I figure I've made mistakes before," he said, "but if this is one, it'll be a very big mistake."

The item in question is an enormous Byzantine icon that Father Rutler had installed behind the altar of the Roman Catholic Church last week. Twenty-four feet high, and placed 10 feet off the ground, the painting shows Christ in the aspect sometimes called "Pantocrator," or "ruler of all." A golden halo sits over his head, and he is bathed in light from above, one hand extended in benediction and the other clutching a jewelled book.

Parishioners seemed shocked but happy. "I think it's beautiful," said Theresa Kane. "I found it overwhelming at first. It takes my breath away."
The lavishness of the work recalls the great age of cathedral painting. "There's $500 to $600 of gold on the halo itself," said Donal Murray, one of the two artists who created the painting.

The icon is a vast enlargement of a sixth-century painting thought to be among the oldest extant icons of Christ. Father Rutler spotted a medieval copy of it in the exhibition "Byzantium: Faith and Power" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art earlier this year, and immediately wanted an enlargement of the original for the church. "I thought it was a nice, friendly face," he said.

As luck would have it, Father Rutler knew a muralist, Ken Jan Woo, whom he had baptized into the Catholic faith. Mr. Woo comes from a long line of mural painters; his mother and grandmother painted propaganda murals for the Chinese Communist government. He in turn met Mr. Murray at the New York Academy of Art in 2002, and they started collaborating on murals last year. "I like the public work," Mr. Woo said, "because you’re not cooped up painting every day in isolation."

For all the painting's grandeur, Father Rutler conceded that perhaps not everyone would love it. "You know how New Yorkers are," he said. Christ himself could come down, "and they'd say, 'What time's the next subway?'"
ALEX MINDLIN

A 24-foot-high icon installed at Our Saviour Church recalls a great age of cathedral painting.

Commuting Times, October 2000

Title: Dart & Art... a winning combination

DART/Suburban Rail recently teamed up with a young Dublin artist in a new project to make commuting on the DART a more pleasurable experience.

An exhibition of specially commissioned paintings by Donal Murray was officially opened at Pearse Station last week in an effort to "bring art to the DART". The exhibition, entitled "Platform" contains 15 original paintings all with the theme of trains, transport and commuting in the capital. Combining rhythm and movement in a distinctive impressionistic style, the oil on canvas paintings capture the life of the DART and its passengers as the city moves from day into night.

The exhibition is housed in a purpose-built area where commuters can relax and enjoy Murray's artistic impressions of the city away from the hustle and bustle of the busy train station. This is the first exhibition of its kind to be held in Pearse Station and will most likely lead to other such exhibitions in other suburban stations.

Artist Donal Murray, whose paintings can be seen in this pilot project by DART/Suburban Rail, is a graduate of the National College of Art and Design. He has a studio located in Preston Street close to Connolly Station and both artist and DART/Suburban Rail are delighted with the amount of public interest the exhibition has attracted.

pic shows L to R. Artist Donal Murray, Michael Murphy/Manager DART/Suburban Rail, Joe Beardmore/Marketing & Sales Manager DART/Suburban Rail, Liam Temple, Station Master Bray Co Wicklow and Eoin O'Neill DART driver.

Leinster Reader, Vol. 126 No. 24, November 2004

Title: Naas man creates work of art for Kildangan
By PAULA CAMPBELL

NAAS artist Donal Murray has just finished a commission of a 15 foot high and five foot wide Resurrection Icon for Kildangan Church .
The impressive painting was installed in Kildangan church on Sunday and blessed by Bishop Jim Moriarty who presided at the Mass.

"The patron of the 'Resurrection Icon' is Stan Cosgrove, part owner of the legendary Shergar, who has dedicated the painting to the memory of the late Roderic Moore O'Farrall who was a very close friend to him," said Donal.
"The Resurrection Icon was inspired by another resurrection scene in the porch of the chapel which is less realistic to my depiction."

Donal's new painting is more in keeping with the Byzantine style of his previous Icon in the church of Our Saviours in New York City , which was completed last October.

"The Resurrection Icon is also very large. It's 15 foot high and five foot wide, depicting the figure of Christ dressed in white robes emerging from darkness into the light," he added.

"It's a joyful celebration of the risen Christ, His face with a large golden halo portrays the tenderness of his countenance."
Donal completed painting in the chapel in Jobstown, which was opened by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, and last year he completed the mural for St. Brigid's Hospice on the Curragh.

Further afield he was commissioned ahead of thousands of talented American artists to paint a 24ft religious icon in Our Saviour Church, Manhattan , last Christmas.

Donal went to New York in 2001 to undertake a Masters in Fine Art Painting from the New York Academy and spent three years living in the city when he met Father Rutler.

"Immediately he took me to Our Saviour's Church and showed me a dreadful painting, and we both knew something had to be done."
As providence would have it the Church was in line to celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2005 and Father Rutler knew exactly what he wanted to mark the occasion.

"He had seen a medieval copy of the Christ Pantocrator, Greek for 'ruler of all' at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and wanted to have it painted in larger format for the church," informed Donal. "I did a sketch and showed it to him and he was thrilled so we arranged to paint it over the other one."
"Panels were placed over it in case any one ever wants to retrieve the original painting in the future."

Donal found himself involved with one of the biggest religious icons of its kind and is extremely proud of his achievement. It is based on a sixth-century icon on the Monastery of St Catherine on Mount Sinai in Egypt and took Donal seven months to complete.

Alongside the 24 foot masterpiece Donal has painted six small icons depicting a saint or archangel.

"It's an amazing achievement to be instrumental in making this happen and to have a painting of this scale," he said. "The fact that a Kildare man was chose over many talented US painters is something else."