Paula Murray

Born in Ottawa, Paula Murray studied science at the University of Ottawa and ceramics at Sheridan College. Living and working on the shores of Meech Lake, Québec since 1980, her life has been enriched by several years living on the water sailing with her young family sailing between Canada to South America. This ongoing relationship with the sea and the elements has intensified her appreciation of the ephemeral nature of our presence. Her long time interest in the nature of reality has been informed by her discovery and study of The Baha’i Faith.

Elected into the International Academy of Ceramics in 2017 and the Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts in 2006, she exhibits internationally having received honourable mentions for prestigious competitions in China, Italy, Korea, Taiwan and Japan. In 2015 she was awarded the Prix du Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec for Work of the Year for her installation Connection x Connexion and Artist of the Year for the Outaouais region. Selected collections include Korean Ceramic Foundation Museum, New Taipei City Yingge Ceramic Museum, Museum of Ceramics, Faenza Italy, Canada House, London, UK, and in Canada the Gardiner Museum, Museum of History, City of Ottawa and the Canada Council Art Bank and The Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery.

“Paula Murray has….opted for a path that lies out along porcelain’s very fringes. She’s pushed the material’s tensile qualities way past their literal and figurative breaking points and in the end created work of enormous beauty, power, and meaning. It all has to do with a willingness to abandon (or at least, put aside) the aesthetic fundamentalism of a purist approach.” Gil McElroy 2007

ARTIST STATEMENT

Transformation is at the heart of Paula Murray’s practice. Porcelain is an ideally responsive material for exploring her themes of trauma/ resilience, control/ submission, and the dynamism of the visible/invisible. Her process results in forms, surface tensions, and colours, whose beauty invites a visceral/visual understanding.