ABOUT MURRAY HOCHMAN

Murray Hochman (b. 1934) is a prolific NYC painter currently living in the Berkshires (MA). For more than 60 years, he has quietly pushed the boundaries of contemporary painting. Throughout that time, he exhibited his work regularly, but has distanced himself from the art establishment, letting his own processes, both internal and external, shape his work.

Growing up in New York City’s Lower East Side, Hochman immersed himself in the wealth of art and entertainment the city had to offer. As a young boy, on school days, he could often be found at local pool halls or Broadway shows, or roller-skating in the then-empty galleries of uptown museums. After graduating high school, in the aftermath of the Korean War, he was drafted and stationed in Kaiserslautern, Germany. His time there would become one of the most formative periods of his life. He traveled throughout Europe, was introduced to world literature through Ivy League army buddies, and had his first encounter with ceramics in an army base crafts class. Upon returning home, Hochman attended New York University through the GI Bill and graduated with a BA in art history. He went on to study ceramics, receiving an MFA from Alfred University. Afterwards, Hochman returned to New York City and quickly shifted to painting, but his preoccupation with surfaces and texture remains evident in his work.

From the vibrant NYC arts scene of the 1960s to the present, Hochman has painted consistently, guided by cultural trends, the demands of his materials and an abiding interest in experimentation. Visually, he took cues from the abstract expressionists and minimalists, and deeply admired the experimental sounds of minimalist composers such as Morton Feldman and La Monte Young. Although his works are often created in a minimal form, his sophisticated — sometimes whimsical — use of color and space create compositions in which time seems to dissolve. 

An overarching influence on Hochman’s work has been his nearly lifelong practice of Zen Buddhism, with its emphasis on emptiness and the unification of opposing forces. It is a practice that lends his work a certain spontaneity and sense of the unexpected: letting his materials, chance and the moment guide his creative process. “The parameters of my work,” he says, “are both formal and expressionistic, veering between concept and impulse, and their fusion.” Peering into the visual expanse of his larger paintings, one often discerns an underpainting of formal geometric shapes. These are covered with layers of undulating chromatic paint, dissolved by solvents and then scraped off to reveal the complexity of what lies underneath.

A major aesthetic influence has been the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi, which exalts the unstudied — often overlooked — beauty of common objects: seeing perfection in the imperfect and the impermanent. Elements of  wabi-sabi are visible in many of Hochman’s distressed surfaces, and in his re-use of materials such as empty paint cans, discarded plastic and metal shelving from local scrapyards. For several years in the 1990s he immersed himself in what he called  Studies for Rust, using patina solutions popular with interior decorators to paint simple geometric forms. Over time, they transmuted into powdery rich-brown rust along with olive green and dusty blue metallic surfaces. This transformation was filtered through Hochman’s keen perception of surfaces and lifelong exploration of materials.