Joanne in the Canyon, 1990-91

Oil on canvas
© Elizabeth Murray

Celebrated for her elaborately three-dimensional, often brightly colored canvases, Elizabeth Murray belonged to a cohort of artists who emerged together in New York in the 1970s but against whose often process-oriented work her own stuck out like a lightning bolt or an exclamation point (both of which happen to have been literal motifs in her repertoire). Joanne in the Canyon is emblematic of Murray’s work of the period. The shaped canvas was constructed from more than a dozen pieces of wood, interlocked into a distinctive whole rife with irregular angles and sections jutting out. With its undulating surfaces and crater-like formations, the painting evokes the landscapes of the American Southwest, which were a frequent source of inspiration for the artist. The orange, green, and red hues of the canvas also function as an abstract portrait of Murray’s friend Joanne Akalaitis (born 1937), who loved the Empire State Building, and would hike through sandstone canyons in the bright red sunlight wearing distinctive green shoes.