Self-taught Ma­yaro artist Char­maine Mur­ray, whose work has been sold coun­tries abroad, is urg­ing cit­i­zens to use art as a ther­a­py to re­duce pan­dem­ic stress.

Mur­ray, who lived in Tunisia, Tan­za­nia and Egypt, is back in Trinidad and plans to host an art ex­hi­bi­tion in her home town of Ma­yaro as well as San Fer­nan­do some­time in the fu­ture when COVID-19 re­stric­tions are lift­ed.

Speak­ing ex­clu­sive­ly to Guardian Me­dia, Mur­ray said she was us­ing the pan­dem­ic to bol­ster her cre­ative side, not­ing that some of her best work has been done dur­ing this pan­dem­ic pe­ri­od.

"The down­time with COVID has al­lowed me to fall in love with na­ture again. When I do a plein air paint­ing, I am in­spired by the colours and sounds of na­ture. COVID has brought a still­ness and a peace that was not there be­fore," she said.

Mur­ray said while many peo­ple are stressed out be­cause of the tri­als of COVID-19, there were still growth op­por­tu­ni­ties.

"My pri­ma­ry goal is to do a so­lo ex­hib­it of my work in Trinidad one day, maybe in my home vil­lage of Ma­yaro and then in San Fer­nan­do where I have lived and worked for con­sid­er­able times in my life. COVID has put a damper on things but I am hope­ful that some­day if giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty, I would be able to do so," she said.

Mur­ray ex­plained that art al­lows her to ex­plore ar­eas that she did not know ex­ist­ed.

"I love do­ing land­scapes, it al­lows me to touch na­ture’s colours and tones and per­spec­tives. I would love to see old­er women get­ting in­volved in art, which for me is ther­a­peu­tic. Long af­ter you leave these shores, your foot­prints would re­main through your work," she said.

"Noth­ing brings more sat­is­fac­tion to me than to take a blank can­vas and with the draw­ing and colour bring some­thing to life. It’s like a re­birth. A com­plet­ed piece gives me a sense of ac­com­plish­ment and sat­is­fac­tion."

Even though her work is well re­spect­ed abroad, Mur­ray said she was al­ways pleased when peo­ple come to her home to look at her work.

"Art has giv­en me a pur­pose. I plan my days to in­cor­po­rate two or three hours of 'me time' so that I can paint, look at videos and tech­niques via YouTube and dis­sect the work of fa­mous artist like Lud­mi­la of Rus­sia," she said.

SHAR­ING HER TECH­NIQUES

Mur­ray said she was al­so will­ing to share her tech­niques and pas­sion for art.

"I would like to in­vite old­er women to pur­sue a hob­by and stick with it. Ini­tial­ly, when I paint it was to put beau­ty on the walls of my home. That was my mo­ti­va­tion when I start­ed do­ing art in Tunisia. A big palace with emp­ty walls was my home, so I brought life to that space by putting colour and im­ages through­out the home," she ex­plained.

She said it was al­so pos­si­ble to make an in­come from the art­work.

"When you start en­joy­ing the fun that art brings and if the fun al­lows you to gain com­pe­tence, you could sell a piece or three, like I have been do­ing and even make a liv­ing from it," she said.

"Art is the cure for all stress-re­lat­ed ail­ments...some­thing about mix­ing colours and the re­lease of stress. I of­ten feel that women, es­pe­cial­ly those who have worked in cor­po­rate of­fices or just gen­er­al­ly out­side the homes, at re­tire­ment tend to com­plain of bore­dom or are con­fused as to what to do next? Art could be the ves­sel through which you ex­press that con­fu­sion and help to re­build your con­fi­dence and pur­pose."

She al­so in­vit­ed old­er women to paint with her.

Mur­ray said she works with all types of medi­ums in­clud­ing acrylic, wa­ter­colour and im­pas­to but her pref­er­ence was oil paint on can­vas.

"I am a reg­is­tered mem­ber of the Art So­ci­ety of T&T. Be­fore my in­volve­ment in art, I worked with AMO­CO Trinidad Inc, sec­re­tary to two may­ors of the City of San Fer­nan­do and fi­nal­ly ex­ec­u­tive as­sis­tant to the pres­i­dent of BHP Bil­li­ton," she re­vealed.

Mur­ray said she was en­cour­aged to pur­sue art while study­ing at the Rio Claro Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary School in 1976.

"I am a self-taught artist, with an eye and dri­ve for con­tin­u­ous learn­ing. Af­ter 30 years of work­ing in the field of busi­ness and rais­ing my chil­dren, I pur­sued a Diplo­ma in Draw­ing and Paint­ing from the Lon­don Art Col­lege. My spe­cial­i­ty and pas­sion are in Fine Art which is a vi­su­al art, con­sid­ered pri­mar­i­ly for aes­thet­ic pur­pos­es and judged for its beau­ty and mean­ing­ful­ness, specif­i­cal­ly in the ar­eas of paint­ing, sculp­ture, draw­ing, wa­ter­colour, graph­ics and ar­chi­tec­ture," she said.

LIFE AS AN ARTIST

Mur­ray was born in Ma­yaro and got mar­ried to Steven­son Mur­ray in 1983. They have two chil­dren–Al, a me­chan­i­cal en­gi­neer and a daugh­ter, Alyssa, who is a med­ical doc­tor.

Mur­ray said her hus­band lived and worked in Egypt where she vis­it­ed from time to time. In 2011, she joined him on an ex­pa­tri­ate as­sign­ment in Tunisia, North Africa.

"Dur­ing my time there, I de­cid­ed to pur­sue Fine Art. I had my work ex­hib­it­ed for the first time in Tunisia with Ate­lier. The re­sponse was favourable and three small pieces were sold. I moved to the Re­pub­lic of Tan­za­nia, East Africa, in 2014 and lived in Dar es Salaam (DAR)," she re­called.

Mur­ray said DAR was a hotbed for art but most­ly in the in­dige­nous art form of Tin­ga Tin­ga (paint­ing of stick-like fig­ures).

"I con­tin­ued work­ing un­der the tute­lage of two renowned Tan­zan­ian artists, Ar­mani and Lu­dovic. Even­tu­al­ly I was able to ex­hib­it my work with them and most of my work was sold. It was a hum­bling time for me. One of my pieces was do­nat­ed to the Vipa­ji Art Gallery to form part of its per­ma­nent col­lec­tion," she re­vealed.

Mur­ray said she moved back to Trinidad in 2018 and con­tin­ued qui­et­ly do­ing her work.

Al­though art ma­te­r­i­al is ex­pen­sive and some­times not avail­able in San Fer­nan­do, Mur­ray said she was still pro­duc­ing mas­ter­pieces.

"Sourc­ing an ac­com­plished artist to shad­ow or to work along­side is not read­i­ly ac­ces­si­ble as is com­mon in oth­er coun­tries where I have lived. Those artists help you to learn new tech­niques and to sharp­en your skills," she said.

Al­though COVID-19 did not al­low her to fol­low through with her plans to show­case her work this year, Mur­ray said she still plans on giv­ing back.

She said go­ing for­ward, she plans to give to char­i­ty a por­tion out of every piece that is sold.