Jim Murray is an actor, director, conservationist and artist known for Masters of Air (2024) and The Crown (2016). Murray first came to prominence as an artist in 2023 with his acclaimed inaugural exhibition In Flow, where his dynamic abstract paintings were hung in conversation with John Constable’s The Dark Side. Murray draws huge inspiration from the rivers and oceans he is fiercely passionate about, and as such his paintings are full of drama, energy and movement. To be in a state of 'flow' in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter, is where Murray believes all artists, performers and athletes strive to be. Painting offers him an elastic mental space where time becomes so stretched and distorted that it no longer matters.'Action' painting or 'gestural abstraction' is a focus on the physical act of painting itself, and for Murray, is as vital to the piece as the finished image. He describes the process - with its constant movement, where the image can change wildly and dramatically minute to minute - as wholly compelling and utterly absorbing.

Murray has become a leading voice alongside the likes of singer Feargal Sharkey and fellow actors, fighting for the protection of waterways and endangered wild Atlantic salmon. Galvanising the collective voice of anglers, Jim Murray founded Activist Anglers, which works alongside Fish Legal to empower and educate anglers on protecting their waterways.