Judith’s early paintings feature irregular geometric figures. Her colorful, abstract subjects brightly pop from a black ground, exemplified by her 1978 painting Red Angle.  Each right-hand edge is branded with an idiosyncratic vertical strip of color that acknowledges the painting’s boundary and objectness. Oddly, the compositions achieve balance without relying on symmetry. Her arrangement of shapes and colors produces a complex viewing experience.

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Through the years, Judith’s work continues to have certain characteristics, but the changes are noticeable.  The brush handling is looser and ethereal, and various hues are introduced. She continues to work with the marginal vertical strip; in the 90s, Murray abandoned strict geometry and began to produce paintings that seem to harbor a strange, inner light.  The assemblage of color emanates an “emotional” radiance but also effects a magnetic physicality. Murray employs paint in a sculptural way to produce dense, uneven surfaces that assert a very physical presence, and is particularly true in her most recent works. The unusual balance attained in her early paintings informs her later work; instead of flat, jagged geometry, the subject now is the paint itself, and equilibrium is maintained through both its materiality and color organization. The resultant architecture of the surface, the topography of oil paint, underscores the solid support of its canvas.