Gabrielle Murdock – Representations of women

BEING a full time store manager and running a successful business as a visual artist can be exhausting sometimes, but Gabrielle Murdock has managed to strike a comfortable balance between these two occupations. When she is not at her workplace — the EtAl store on Phoenix Avenue — you might catch the self-taught artist working on a painting at home, or watching reruns of Grey’s Anatomy for the umpteenth time. The 25-year-old told All Woman that she did not plan on becoming either of these things, but instead, she had set out to become a lawyer.

“I never thought of art as a career path, because that was foreign to me,” she said. “The plan was always to become a lawyer.”

Murdock’s father had passed away when she was just four years old, and her godfather, attorney-at-law Christopher Townsend, helped her mother to raise her as if she was his own. Eager to follow in his footsteps, law seemed to be the only option for her. But in her first year of law school, she realised that she was not as passionate about it as she should have been.

“I mean I was more than capable of getting the grades if it was something that I was interested in, but as much as I wanted to please my parents, there was no passion or drive so I didn’t do that well,” she confessed.

But after reflecting on the time she spent interning at law firms throughout high school, and the hefty tuition fees that would have gone down the drain if she quit, Murdock decided to trudge through and complete her degree. But even after she completed her studies, her heart was still not warming up to the idea of practising law.

It wasn’t until the Christmas of 2015 that she remembered the talent that she had on her fingertips.

“I completely forgot to buy gifts for my family members and my friends, and I was like, ‘You know what, maybe I should do a painting or an art piece’. I got the canvas, I got paints, and I sat down and looked for inspiration on Pinterest, looked on YouTube for techniques, and basically sat down and taught myself how to paint.”

That day Murdock completed five paintings, and reignited a flame that had sparked in her when she was about seven years old, when she drew a man holding a bunch of flowers on a piece of paper and presented it to her mother’s co-worker who appeared to be sad. And though she had thoroughly enjoyed the mandatory visual arts classes at Immaculate Conception High School, her spirits were dampened when she obtained at grade three in the subject in her CXC exams.

Her relatives were pleasantly surprised when Murdock presented them with their Christmas gifts that year.

“They turned out great. I surprised myself. I think I surprised everybody. I really enjoyed doing it. I sat down four hours painting and didn’t even realise it, because I thoroughly enjoyed what I was doing,” she remembered.

But it wasn’t until last year when Murdock started engaging more with young creatives and ventured boldly into creative spaces that she started considering art as a viable career path.

“They did Fleet Street, and I saw all these artists coming together doing murals downtown, and I wished I could do that. I thought it was so amazing, because I’d never seen artists in Jamaica doing things like that.”

“I wish I could do that” soon translated into “I can do that” for Murdock. She entertained the thought of pursuing art professionally, and how she would assuage her mother’s concerns that she would not be better off financially while pursuing this dream. She applied herself wholeheartedly to her craft, so that her mother would have no room for worry or scepticism.

“I started focusing on it, doing my research, teaching myself different techniques. I drew inspiration mainly from African artists, like Jimmy Law and Nelson Makamo. They use a lot of colours, which is what I like, and you’ll see in my pieces,” she shared.

Comforted by the thought that every artist is an imitator until they find their own style, Murdock pulled from her influencers until she felt confident enough to create pieces based purely on how she felt. Her work is now themed mainly on representations of women, as she draws inspiration from the women in her life.

“A lot of my paintings are of the female form — black women. I’m inspired by the people around me. I think it’s important to showcase strong black women being represented in all forms, and art is the perfect way to do that,” she said proudly.

Since she has awakened her inner artist, Murdock has been using Instagram — @buygabmurdock — to market her paintings, which have been doing very well. She has also transferred her knowledge from law school to her business, and it has helped her tremendously in terms of communicating, networking, and even drafting documents such as proposals and contracts. Being self-taught, though, she is still learning a lot as she goes along.

“I just started working with oil paint, which is a bit more difficult to work with because it takes so long to dry, so when you mix the paints it turns into something else. Shading is also difficult because there is a specific way to shade so that it comes out the desired way,” she explained.

Murdock also recently started working with portraits, and is considering enrolling in a course to develop her skills to better capture facial features.

Although sometimes art becomes unpredictable, and time has a way of disappearing while she is painting, she loves her nine-to-five, as it allows her to have a safety net, meet new people, and even showcase her pieces there.

Being the animal lover that she always was, she spends a lot of time with her pitbull pup Loki, whom she affectionately refers to as her firstborn. She hopes to travel to Bali, India, Mexico and New York City.

“Ideally I’d want to be in a treehouse in the jungle in Bali,” she laughed. “India for the culture and the colours. New York for the city life, the fashion, the food, and to go on the hot air balloons in Mexico.”

She advised parents to allow their children to find themselves, and not force them into a profession that they want for them. Using her personal motto, she encourages everyone to go after their passion fearlessly.

“My motto is, ‘Find what you love and let it kill you’,” she said. “It represents just going head first into your passion. Don’t let the fear of failure stop you from pursuing your dreams.”