Tatyana Murray

Tatyana Murray was born in London in 1971. She studied at the British Academy of Arts, London (1990-91), took two short courses - 'Art Styles through the Ages' at New York University (1995) and 'Ideas in Art' with Jan Avgikos at The School of Visual Arts, New York (1996) - and then studied sculpture at the New York Studio School (1995-98). She has exhibited since 1997 when she took part in the '97 National Juried Exhibition' at the Phoenix Gallery, New York, which was curated by Laura Hopmann of the Museum of Modern Art. Her…

Tatyana Murray was born in London in 1971. She studied at the British Academy of Arts, London (1990-91), took two short courses - 'Art Styles through the Ages' at New York University (1995) and 'Ideas in Art' with Jan Avgikos at The School of Visual Arts, New York (1996) - and then studied sculpture at the New York Studio School (1995-98).

She has exhibited since 1997 when she took part in the '97 National Juried Exhibition' at the Phoenix Gallery, New York, which was curated by Laura Hopmann of the Museum of Modern Art. Her work was represented in a group exhibition at the Galleria D'Arte Zero, Barcelona, in 1998 and she has had further group and solo shows in New York and London. She showed a solo exhibition in London entitled 'Girls Just Want to Have Fun' at Blains Fine Art in 2001, a selection from which was included in the 'Supra Natural' exhibition at Canary Wharf, London, in 2002.

At a time when art is pretty well at centre stage of public consciousness, being entirely professional and often based within the cults of celebrity and fame, Tatyana Murray questions the value of innocence in the world of contemporary art. Her elected path was influenced by the words of Picasso, in which he opined that to be a real painter one has to unlearn the precocious genius of childhood. This is fertile, if dangerous ground for the artist who wishes to explore naïve constructs, but who eschews the cuteness and appeal of naïve art. The sculptures based in these concepts took the form first of massed ova, which Murray developed into a series under the title Candy Flowers, and eventually into globular evocations of water, such as Waterfall (2001). The flowers were made of plaster, highly finished to the quality of eggshells, the lightness of their pastel colours betraying their weight. Made smaller in clear resin, these have become jewel-like versions of their progenitors. In the waterfall sculptures she has again taken the egg form, but has used it as vast water droplets within a cast of clear blue resin. Light resonates and alters these pieces that appear to be fluid, but are in fact solid. Recently, Murray has begun to experiment with video, which for her is a new medium.