THE ARTIST
Canadian
M.F.A painting & photography
University of Saskatchewan 2012
B.F.A with Great Distinction
University of Lethbridge 2005
Within my research based practice, I play as a form of inquiry with representations of domesticity and landscape within the discourse of painting and contemporary ceramics. My interests include modes of representation that are commonly associated with the baroque period including, theatricality, bravado and material excess.
I am a full time, practicing artist living in Vulcan, AB.
Artist statement
My paintings and ceramics flirt with the line between fine art and decoration, using both trending and vintage colours, patterns, and objects that evoke the quotidian, the nostalgic, and the ritual aspects of domestic space. The idea of home is a charged concept - for some they are spaces of refuge and productivity, for others they are places of violence and confinement. I am interested in depictions of the home found in advertising, television, and social media. Consumer culture sells an image of home as a place of harmony and family life, where happy memories and boundless imagination are promised through designer goods and curated spaces that evoke feelings of nostalgia and quaintness mixed with luxury and excess. My paintings and ceramics play with the unattainability of this vision by presenting spaces and objects that subtly reveal the impossibility of these ideals, through excess and abstraction.
Best,
Eileen Murray
