While critics differ in their assessment of Darren Murray’s artistic aims, Gerry Walker detects a marked affinity with the 19th-century Nabis group

Antrim-born artist Darren Murray has attracted diverse critical acclaim, most of it insightful and favourable, in the course of the past six years (Fig 1). Some saw him as the chronicler of a clash between disparate cultures – oriental and occidental in the main. Some compared his paintings to the designs on Hawaiian shirts. Others regarded him as offering a cultural critique on the commercial commodification of the natural environment