What Next

Diptych Wollemia vanessii 2016, oil on plywood, has been accepted for a group exhibition RENEW at Chris O’Brien Lifehouse 21-25 November. The exhibition showcases the importance and connection between art & health and coincides with the symposium being held on Thursday “exploring the essence of patient centered care.” This work will be part of Articulate project space group exhibition “What Next” 10-26 December.

Wollemia vanessii 2016

We are all Strangers (collaboration with Mandy Burgess) was selected finalist for Sculptures in the Vineyards, can be seen in the poplar groveat Stonehurst Vineyard. Despite no funding there were great installations by Akira Kamada, Billy Gruner and Greer Taylor at Undercliff Winery, and Fiona Davies in the Forge, amongst others at the five sites around Wollombi.

We are all Strangers (2016) installed at Sculptures in the Vineyards.

Girl in the Bark Hat I and No place for Children are selected finalists into Blacktown Art Prize, Opening 2 December.

Girl in the Bark Hat I, 2016

No place for Children, 2016

2017 kicks off with a new group exhibition - The Waiting Room -  at Articulate Project Space opening 3 February 2017. Artists include - Mandy Burgess, Deborah Burdett, Susie Williams and Renuka Fernando. 

Emerging Artist Winner

The installation “Bush Tucker Doesn’t Use Plastic” reinvented itself amongst the she-oaks at Sculpture at Sawmillers McMahons Point, like plants in different landscapes, soils or seasons, and won me the Emerging Artist Prize (within 6 years from graduating).

Sculpture at Sawmillers Emerging Artist Winner - Ro Murray

Exhibition Openings - Sawmillers & Meroogal

The installation “Bush Tucker Doesn’t use Plastic” has been selected for Sculpture at Sawmillers McMahons Point. The exhibition will be opened by Quinten Bryce 3.30pm Saturday 17 September, until Sunday 25 September, otherwise the sculptures are on view in Sawmillers Reserve by the Harbour.

The lime wash pink hands “Ten Maids a-Making,” made with Mandy Burgess, has been selected finalist Meroogal Womens Art Prize.

“Selected works will be displayed throughout the house and garden of Meroogal – a [two storey weatherboard] Gothic house in Nowra that was home to four generations of women from the Thorburn and MacGregor families. Artists were invited to create works that respond to the house, the garden and the collection of objects, throwing new light on the personal stories of the people who lived there”. Sydney living Museums 

Mandy and I highlighted the daily work the women at Meroogal did by hand: sewing, cooking, working in the dairy.

The exhibition opens Saturday 24 September in Nowra, on exhibition until 28 January 2017.

“We are all Strangers” - Murray & Burgess

After the test photo shoots down south at Milton, all 80 odd hydro-stone hands “We are all Strangers” by Murray and Burgess, has been selected on the beach for Sculpture at Killalea Shellharbour 13-16 October.

The hands have also been selected for Sculptures in the Vineyards Wollombi, opening 29 October till 11 December.

Bush Tucker doesn’t use Plastic - Finalist

“Bush Tucker doesn’t use Plastic” has been selected finalist for the inaugural Sculptural Walk at Kur-ing-gai Wild flower Garden, Mona Vale Road St Ives, opening Saturday 27 August till 4 September.

“Bush Tucker…”  has also been selected for  Sculptures at Sawmillers McMahon’s Point, opening Saturday 17 September till 25 September. The work responds to the sites in different ways. 

Save our Art Schools.

There have been two recent proposals two amalgamate Sydney art schools.

SCA was to amalgamate with UNSWAD (the old COFA) in 2017. Instead they will be forced from their Rozelle studios to the Camperdown /Darlington Sydney University campus, with no purpose built accommodation, and a major cut in staff. There is now a sit-in protest at their College in Rozelle in protest. In solidarity I demonstrated outside AGNSW, holding the banner.

The National Art School at Darlinghurst is also under threat, with ownership of the prpoarty changing from Dept of education to State, which has been at the heritage sandstone Darlinghurst The rally walked to Parliament House Macquarie Street to in the rain, blocking Oxford Street. The move is part of suggestions by the Baird Government to change the way the three Sydney art schools are run, essentially combining some of their operations with Sydney University and the UNSW.

“The move has drawn criticism from supporters of the arts who say the reason for making changes to the National Art School is part of a land grab by the Baird Government to sell off and develop the site of the school which sits on prime real estate in Sydney's Darlinghurst.

The ownership of the site recently changed from the NSW Department of Education to Government Properties NSW.” Brooke Boney ABC News 28/8/16

Campaign with Clover

Campaign with Clover and the Independent Team. The upcoming local elections on 10 September has me walking the beat. I’m finding a big smile does help!

As other councils have been forced to consolidate with appointed administrators, Sydney Council is going to a democratic election.

My drawing WALK on found billboard posters will go to auction at the Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation Goodhope Street Paddington, 6-8pm 6 September.

WALK will be amongst works by Wendy Sharp, Bernard Ollis, Janet Laurence, Lindy Lee, Gordon Bennett and Locust Jones.

Milton Ulladulla Times

Thanks to Ron Aggs for including a feature on the Murray-Burgess hands in a recent article in the Milton Ulladulla Times. This work has been accepted for Sculpture at Killalea, Shell Harbour.

"GARDEN POP-UP: These 80 hands took several months to make, the artists' response to the global refugee crisis and what they regard as Australia’s inhumane off-shore detention centres. Photo: Ken Banks"

Murray & Burgess - homesweethome

Ro Murray and Mandy Burgess in collaboration for the installation:

homesweethome

Opening drinks Saturday 2 July 2-4pm
Closing drinks Sunday 10 July 2-4pm

2-10 July: Thursday to Sunday 11am-4pm
Chrissie Cotter Gallery, Pidcock Street, Camperdown

1 in every 122 people in the world are displaced (2014 UNHCR Report)

There were 367 children in immigration detention seeking asylum in Australia as of April 2016(Asylum Seeker Resource Centre)

 “The shrinking of imaginative identification which allows such things as shared humanity to be forgotten always begins at home” (Robinson 2012, 31) (Imagining…P16)

Home is a ‘spatial imaginary’ to which we attach feelings of both refuge and danger. It includes in its meaning an idea of where we can safely settle and daydream, but also an idea of exclusion. It encompasses the gamut of what it means to be human. Our exhibition homesweethome looks at the notion of home in the light of global displacement and the local detention of refugees and asks us to look at our human responses to crisis.

At Chrissie Cotter Gallery -  Entry space: we are all strangers, 2016, wire, hessian, plaster, dimensions variable Main space: home, 2015-16, plywood, wood, canvas, paint, stain, wire, dimensions variable.

Bush Tucker Doesn't Use Plastic

This installation in Sculpture on the Greens is a reminder of how much non-biodegradable plastic we purchase every day. The work uses 5 months of saved plastic containers from my breakfast blue berries and yoghurt, found poly piping and cable spools.

On view at Mercure Kooindah Waters Wyong until 22 May

Residency BigCi - Bilpin, NSW

I was lucky to have a four week art residency at Bilpin international ground for Creative initiatives (BigCi). Directors sculptor Rae Bolotin and conservationist Yuri Bolotin purpose built the new eco shed to make art with roller doors, double height space and steel walls for magnetic fittings for hanging drawings. My time there coincided with Dublin artist Mairead  O’hEocha and documentary film maker  Vanessa Macedo. I had the space to start several projects.

Work started in preparation for “homesweethome,” an exhibition with fellow NAS grad Mandy Burgess at Chrissie Cotter Gallery Pidcock Street, Camperdownin June 29-July 10 2016. I drew international and local visitors to BigCi onto plywood.

Eastern Europe

A trip to Prague, Vienna, London and Budapest was inspiring to get a different view point to Sydney, looking at architecture and art.

A train trip out of Prague to a UNESCO town Kutna Hora to see the Sedlec Ossuary. This was a memento mori from an abolished cemetery. This mausoleum had a surprising continuity with the Alexander McQueen fashion exhibition in V&A London, with a room of bones. 

This contrast of opposites Unexpectedly to hear a Gershwin Concert and see the mosaic dome and surrounds in the Spanish Synagogue in Prague. 

Out of Prague, Litomerice a small town with large square with a painting and print exhibition by Hodonsky in old deconsecrated Jesuit Church. Nearby the Terezin Monument at the Nazi transfer station.

Vienna Biennale had reflective tank of black dyed water “Rose of Nothingness ” 2015 by Belu –Simion Fainaru, similar in effect (but not meaning)to the sump oil installation at Saatchi Gallery in London “20:50” 1987 by Richard Wilson, epic illusion; and at the House of Terror, Budapest under the military tank.

Above - Marc Quinn "Toxic Sublime" at White Cube, London

While in London I had the opportunity to visit galleries with fellow National Art School graduate Laura Jeanes-Ellenberger. Great to have a local guide to crisscross London to see galleries I hadn’t seen and share thoughts.