A self-taught artist, Jo Owens Murray is originally from South Carolina. She graduated from Rosemont College in 1993 with a B.A. in art history. Her three-dimensional sculptural assemblages employ an array of brilliantly colored beads to address the human emotion and, more specifically, issues facing women in today's society. Her work is included in the permanent collection of four museums, including the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art and the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.
"My sculptures reflect my own upbringing as a young girl - my fantasies combined with the realities of today. My work tells of the myth of how women should be seen and not heard.
The mannequins represent the distorted idea that a woman's worth is in her outer appearances. But it is not just how others see a woman, but how women have been too concerned with their appearances to pay attention to what truly matters in their lives.That is why my 'girls' are nothing more than empty, beautiful hollow shells. Like the Surrealists, I have transformed women into fixtures. They are only parts and never whole."
+ Link Artbyjo.com - The Surrealistic Art of Jo Owens Murray
