RD Murray Biography

From his quiet spot amongst the shadows, Robert Murray captures the light…

With an insatiable appetite for learning, Robert has exploring the world through his artwork since he was a child. His career has followed a path through multiple artistic expressions including architectural and technical illustration, award-winning graphic design and illustration, but it’s in his paintings that we catch a glimpse of the curious boy from south London, Ontario.

As a boy, Robert loved to study the drawings in Popular Mechanics and spend time watching his Grandfather at work, building wagons for Silverwood’s Dairy. The puzzle and intricacy of how things worked appealed to him and this curiosity set the stage for a life spent observing and learning from every experience.

He also loved exploring the back laneways in town; places of mystery off the beaten path, a world unto themselves where a boy could imagine endless adventures and explore the hidden treasures of the wild urban pockets.

Then, on a school trip to what is now the AGO, Robert saw an impressionist painting exhibition and was mesmerized. This was before television and media filled our homes and Robert shares that he literally felt stunned by the remarkable colours he saw and the way the light seemed to be emanating from the canvases themselves. He found himself compelled to begin capturing the beauty he saw around him with that same force and light.

Robert sees himself as a communicator above all. He is driven to share what resonates with him, and what he responds to in the world, through his art. He is struck by the patterns, colours and of course the light that surrounds us and they propel him to his canvases to paint his vision.

For Robert, life and art offer constant learning opportunities and painting has elements of problem solving that he finds fascinating. He has a deep reverence for nature, but prefers to capture urban landscapes, reaching out to the light from his quiet places of observation amongst the shadows to give us new perspectives on the mysteries hidden within the everyday.

Today, Robert works from a studio at the home he shares with his beloved wife. His paintings and drawings are represented in galleries and international collections and he is also an experienced art workshop instructor.

Friendly and down-to-earth, Robert humbly suggests that a painting should just make a wall look better. In truth, his paintings make our world look better and the magical vision of that wide-eyed, curious boy who watched the light play from within the shadows is obvious in every brush stroke.