CONTEMPORARY ART STOCKROOM Kendal Murray

**News Update**

Kendal Murray is a finalist in the 2024 Deakin University Contemporary Small Sculpture Award.

Kendal Murray is known for imaginative and often whimsical artworks that explore the links between interiority and the performance of social knowledge. Her sculptures survey the embodiment of these connections through her combination of emblematic materials and bespoke techniques, which inform the physical and emotive resonance of her artworks.

The manipulation of readily identifiable everyday objects, combined with a range of evocative materials, is used by Murray to prompt an assortment of narrative associations and the examination of personal and social concepts. Through her solo exhibitions Murray has explored themes of gender and beauty, plastic surgery and the commodification of body image, the gendering of memory, nostalgia, collecting, and more recently, dream imagery in the design of self-image.

'For most, the recollection of childhood memories evokes a sense of freedom. A freedom to run wild, to climb trees, ride bikes and create an imaginative world of our very own. Kendal Murray’s works conjures this sense of child’s play and of the infinite possibilities of exploration, creation and belonging in the natural environment. For an artist whose work evokes the otherworldly, Murray’s art is grounded in realism. Familiar scenes rise up between wildflowers and tall grasses; families gather and children play amongst the wilderness, waterways and lush green landscapes of the Australian bush. Her tiny worlds are captured mid-moment, as if peering into the emotional mirage of a memory. Dogs jump, children run, and tyres swing from trees; and for a moment we remember the sound of laughter, the feeling of freedom and the insignificance of time.'
Excerpt of catalogue essay by Joey Hespe, 2022

READ: Murray featured in This is Colossal

READ: 'In the Smile of a Tree' featured in Art Guide

ARTIST PROFILE:
Murray has exhibited her artwork regularly in solo exhibitions since 1995, whilst participating in both international and national group exhibitions. Her work is represented in private Australian and international collections, and public collections including the Powerhouse Museum, Goulburn Regional Gallery, Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery, Grafton Regional Gallery, the University of New South Wales, and the Western Sydney University Collection. Murray has also been a finalist in several prizes, including The Deakin University Small Sculpture Award (2024, 2023, 2018, 2015), in which she won the people's choice award in 2023, also winning the Beowulf Prize, as part of the Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize that same year. She lives and works in Sydney, Australia.

DOWNLOAD BIO / CV (PDF)

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Media Highlights

Air, Share, Questionnaire 2023
mixed media
19cm x 14cm x 15cm Finalist in Deakin Small Sculpture Award 2024
$5,500 AUD

Deep Sleep, Sweet Entreat 2022
mixed media assemblage
17cm x 9cm x 11cm
$4,000 AUD

Freelance Chance, Expanse Enhance 2022
mixed media assemblage
13cm x 14cm People's Choice for the Deakin Small Sculpture Award 2023
Sold
Sold

Joy Ride, On the Side 2022
mixed media assemblage
12cm x 13cm x 15cm
$4,000 AUD

Run, Run, Fun Won 2022
mixed media assemblage
7cm x 7cm x 9cm
$3,000 AUD

Hideaway, Yesterday 2021
Mixed media assemblage
13cm x 16cm x 16cm
$4,500 AUD

Daytime Climb, High Time Rhyme 2022
mixed media assemblage
11cm x 13cm x 15cm
$4,000 AUD

Extend, Befriend, Defend 2022
mixed media assemblage
41cm x 14cm x 21cm
$6,500 AUD

Play Space, Memory Trace 2022
mixed media assemblage
38cm x 13cm x14cm
$6,500 AUD

Parkland, Heartland, Wonderland 2022
mixed media assemblage
48cm x 14cm x 17cm
$6,000 AUD

Affect, Reflect, Interconnect 2022
mixed media assemblage
59cm x 16cm x 16cm
$9,900 AUD

Race Chase, Breathing Space 2016
Mixed media assemblage
36cm x 16cm x 17cm
$5,000 AUD

Retrace, Embrace, Favourite Place 2022
mixed media assemblage
48cm x 20cm x 16cm
$6,500 AUD

Rabbits’ Habits 2022
mixed media assemblage
8cm x 8cm x 8.5cm
$1,950 AUD

Debut Rendezvous 2022
mixed media assemblage
8cm x 7cm x 8.5cm
$1,950 AUD

Windfall, Install, Enthrall 2020
mixed media assemblage
8cm x 7cm x 8cm
$1,950 AUD

Ambition, Acquisition 2011
Mixed media assemblage
6cm x 5cm x 7cm
$1,950 AUD

Admire, Inquire, Aspire 2011
Mixed media assemblage
8cm x 8cm x 9cm
$1,950 AUD

Waterslide Ride, Joyride Confide 2022
mixed media assemblage
8cm x 8cm x 8cm
$1,950 AUD

Resound Abound 2011
mixed media assemblage
14cm x 20cm x 15.5cm
$4,000 AUD

Revoke Smoke, Invoke Oak 2014
Mixed media assemblage
19cm x 26cm x 12cm
$4,000 AUD

Side By Side, Subdivide 2010
Mixed media assemblage
17cm x 24cm x 30.5cm
$4,500 AUD

Unbox, Paint Box 2019
mixed media assemblage
15cm x 25cm x 4.5cm
$2,000 AUD