Writing Art: Abstract Figures on Paper

Murry, an African American tenant farmer, worked in Glascock County, Georgia, from childhood until the age of sixty-five and never learned to read or write. In 1929, he married Cleo Kitchens, and they raised a family of eleven children. In 1977, Murry came under the care of Dr. William Rawlings, Jr., for a recurrent hip problem, and it was during this period that Murry began having visions in which he was directed to spread the word of God through a kind of writing he called “spirit-script.” According to Murry, this indecipherable script was dictated directly by God and could only be read by viewing it through a glass of divine well water.

Though Murry at first produced the script on whatever materials he could find, including scraps of papers and receipts, his drawings became more and more complex over time, as he added abstract, human-like figures to his creations and began to draw and paint in bright colors on larger canvases.

Murry’s works always depicted images of heaven and hell and good and evil, for he believed that his work was intended to inspire others and teach them the word of God. Indeed, Murry developed a growing body of followers who came to his home and listened to his interpretations of God’s teachings as expressed through him and his art. Eventually, Murry’s art was shown in venues throughout the U.S. and occasionally internationally. In the ten years before his death from cancer, Murry produced hundreds of abstract drawings, all imbued with a delicate, ghostly, and otherworldly beauty.