Lot
26
He Wore It Around Her Neck
Acrylic, weaving and picture on panel, 2012
56 x 43 cm
Estimate
$2 500
This piece was one of the last I made in Berlin. I lived and worked there from 2009 to 2012. This piece was made at my studio at the former GDR radio complex, The Funkhaus. My life in Berlin informed my work there. The city’s historical weight started to leak into the imagery and techniques that I used in my practice. Discarded books from the city’s more problematic eras and photographs of the decaying east contrasted well with electric pigments and acrylic weavings and photographs that I took of the industrial parks around my studio.
Biographical note
Wil Murray (b. 1978, Canada) studied painting at the Alberta College of Art and Design. Describing himself as a reluctant painter, he creates his signature three-dimensional planar collages from the build-up of materials left in limbo in his studio. He abandons the rectangular canvas, instead constructing and building his paintings and the marks of his brushstrokes. Similarly, his collage and photographic works contain a build-up of images and record moments in their construction.
He has had recent solo exhibitions at Sur La Montagne (Berlin), Vitrine Gallery (London, UK), and p|m Gallery (Toronto), and his work was in the group exhibition XSTRACTION alongside artists such as Gerhard Richter and Cory Arcangel at The Hole, New York. His work is included in the RBC and Majudia collections, as well as in Kenworth Moffet’s and Daniel Sylvester’s private collections.
He currently lives and works in Okotoks, Alberta.