Artist Ruth Murray’s new exhibition at the Garden Museum, Byron’s Pond, explores the psychological effect of green spaces, and the relationship between women and bodies of water. We asked Ruth a few questions to find out more:
What was your journey to becoming an artist?
Growing up in a suburb of Birmingham I wasn’t really exposed to contemporary art, but I always had creative projects on the go, and parents who seemed relaxed about letting me paint on walls and furniture. My strongest memories of this time are of inventing elaborate make-believe games with my sisters, being read to a lot, and getting dragged to Dad’s amateur dramatics. After being encouraged to pursue art in higher education, I studied Painting first at Loughborough University then the Royal College of Art. Since then, my life has followed a rhythm of busy periods of exhibiting with focused studio time, and time on residencies around the world, exploring and gathering material for new work.
Why are you drawn to explorations of nature in your work?
Formally, I love getting lost in organic forms that dissolve into patterns and shapes as I paint them. It’s less about representing natural forms in an accurate sense, and more about capturing the essence of it, the living, breathing, ever-changing energy that we’re often removed from. Even in something as ordinary as a garden, there’s this power: a tension between what’s cultivated and what’s wild. I think nature has a way of humbling us, reminding us that there’s so much more happening beyond our control or understanding.
I’m also drawn to explore personal encounters I’ve had with a place: focusing on the relationship between ourselves and the environments we inhabit and through which we move. Nature can represent something unaltered, a default state that exists outside of human hands. There’s something profound in that, whether it’s a garden, a stately home, or a volcano! I’m drawn to our desire to explore the mysterious worlds hidden within nature, and the need to touch and immerse oneself within the material makeup of our surroundings.
What does a typical day in the life of an artist look like for you?
It usually starts with a quick 10 minute cycle to the studio. I’m based at Rogue Studios, a well established artist community in an old Victorian red brick school in Manchester. I’ll do any admin I have over a coffee, and then get going with my ritual of cleaning my glass palette and setting out my paints. I tend to start fresh with a new palette most days, because I like to work with wet paint and it keeps things spontaneous.
I work long days, so I can really settle into the rhythm of painting. I feel like there are natural peaks and troughs throughout the day in terms of focus and energy, so having that longer span gives me space to ride those out. I’ll usually start the day with podcasts, and then as the day goes on, I switch over to music, which helps me maintain momentum. I might stop briefly for lunch and a chat with whoever is in the shared kitchen. I generally wrap up around 7pm. It’s a mix of routine and flow.
Walk us through your process of making a painting: where do you find inspiration, how long will it take to come to fruition?
My paintings are prompted by encounters, which can be an object I’ve stumbled upon, a person I’ve met or a story I’ve heard. When something catches my attention I’ll think through some of its formal aspects/compositional considerations and usually let it percolate for a while until all the elements fall into place. I then stage and direct the scenes from which I work using the materials, people, and locations around me.
In the painting Debdale, for example, I took my friend Rosy out on a canoe on our local reservoir. The leaves had recently turned yellow and on a crisp wintery day they were creating patterns, like gold, on the surface of the water, with Rosy’s strange reflection looking like a portal into another realm. To me this complemented the idea of nature being a link to the deep past, and suggested certain myths and fairy tales, in particular the Lady of Shalott, and paintings by Peter Doig or Munch. These connections have the potential to enrich the process at the compositional stage.
I work slowly and spend a lot of time deliberating over choices of arrangement and scale. The big paintings in particular are months’ long commitment.
Can you tell us about your exhibition for the Garden Museum?
My paintings explore the experiences of women; for my exhibition here at the Garden Museum, I’ve been focusing on the psychological impact of gardens as spaces of refuge and connection. The paintings draw inspiration from my local, urban, environment—my neighbour’s greenhouse, potted plants, and a peaceful corner of the local reservoir—I’ve been thinking about a broader definition of a garden: small green spaces, and municipal parks, and how these can function as sanctuaries offering solace amidst the city. My everyday life becomes a backdrop for these themes, so there’s a dialogue between the personal and communal, the mundane and the transcendent.
The exhibition title, Byron’s Pond, refers to Byron’s Pool, a secluded spot on the River Cam, famously enjoyed by Lord Byron and Virginia Woolf one hundred years apart. By weaving in historical contexts, I’m situating my contemporary reflections within a broader narrative of personal exploration. The show is built out of the specificities of place, but taps into universal experiences shared by our neighbours, ancestors and literary heroes. For me, gardens are not merely spaces of growth; they are rich tapestries of emotion, reflection, and connection.
Was any piece in the show particularly challenging or rewarding to create?
My painting The Firs is the largest I’ve created to date, measuring 270 x 180cm. This scale presented some logistical challenges; maneuvering the piece and trying to reach both the top and bottom were tricky. A friend at my studio helped me set up scaffolding, which I was calling my climbing frame. I had great fun up there! I love working on a large scale because it allows you to be completely immersed in the scene. The painting depicts the University of Manchester’s Botanical Research Centre, known as ‘The Firs,’ with its beautiful, expansive greenhouses. We were granted access after hours, it was very atmospheric in the dark, containing the light. I felt the scale of the painting was essential to capturing it, but it did also feel like a big risk.
What’s your favourite garden to visit when you’re not painting?
Probably my parents’ garden in Birmingham. It’s not particularly grand, but there’s something about it that has a sense of home. There’s a simple satisfaction in sitting out there with them during summer. The lawn, my mum’s flower bed (which comprises a smoke bush, a climbing hydrangea, rose, sedum, poppy, azalea and weeds), and then my dad’s shed, all of it speaks of small but accumulated histories.
But beyond that, I find ways to invite myself into many different gardens. I suppose the Garden Museum exhibition has given me an extra excuse to do this. There have been allotments belonging to friends, private estates, and even a residency in Australia at the end of last year. In the Australian Southern Highlands, I visited one garden that felt almost mythical: Red Cow Farm. It was on the grounds of an 1820s cottage, surrounded by an abundance of roses and perennials, with lots of hidden sections to explore. It was surreal stepping back into spring when in England it was autumn. It felt as though everything, all these familiar English plants, were really flourishing. Their reach was larger, their color more vivid.
Finally, as we are the Garden Museum, can you tell us about your relationship with plants, gardening and nature?
Like many people living in cities, I have a small, concrete yard rather than a garden, but I still find privacy and solace there. It’s inspiring to see what my neighbour, Ingrid (whose tomato plant you’ll see in the exhibition) cultivates in her yard. Despite my own lack of gardening prowess, my connection with nature is incredibly important.
I’ve always lived in cities, but when I’m able to encounter a landscape that feels untamed, there’s a particular feeling of filling up, as though I’ve reconnected with something deeper. It’s this emotional response that I seek to recapture, whether in the stillness of a garden or the vastness of a wild place. There’s something profoundly personal about these encounters, and it’s through these moments that I hope to tap into something universal and shared.
Many of my paintings have been responses to landscapes I’ve encountered on residency trips. While the well-furrowed views of a place you know well can lend a weighty understanding of a subject, I also love that moment of stepping into a new place, a place you don’t understand, that grants a vivid, unguarded impression. You’re left to observe, to absorb, and then to return to the studio with that experience, to distill meaning from it. I find it a deeply reflective process, one where you bring the landscape into your own internal world and find the way it resonates with your own thoughts and references.
The view from my windows in Manchester, which overlooks a park, has also been a constant source of inspiration. Watching the seasons shift in that small piece of nature, seeing it change in response to time and weather, prompts a kind of quiet meditation. The everyday encounter with nature, even in its urban form, is a reminder of something enduring, that exists beyond the noise.
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