Paula Murray Information

For over twenty years Paula Murray has created her sculpted works of fine porcelain in her studio on the shores of Meech Lake. Today her powerful pieces are receiving international acclaim. Just home from the 54th International Ceramic Art Competition in Faenza, Italy - one of only 96 artists selected from 865 applicants - she embodies a vision of the highest technical excellence in personal expression that the biannual event seeks to showcase. Her entry, a delicate bowl entitled "Fragmenting Earth", reveals her desire to voice the vulnerable state of the fractured earth, here poised over a nest of bleached sticks and sinew. The fault lines of inner tension come through in the cracks, knit together with tenuous webbing. To look at a work like this - broken yet beautiful - is to witness the strength and fragility of our world, the precarious vessel we live upon. "Artists are here to raise consciousness of our responsibilities - we must go to that edge to recognize what is happening to the earth. My job is to explore and express that relationship through the vocabulary of clay." Born and raised in Ottawa, Paula first studied science at the University of Ottawa, then went on to Sheridan College's School of Crafts and Design (1977-79) and the Banff School of Fine Arts (1979-80). For extended periods of time she and her husband Jock Munro sailed with their children from Canada to South America, experiencing firsthand the elemental power of the sea and the humbling vagaries of the weather - influences that come through in her work in the tidal sweep of form and colour. Teaching herself, Paula has evolved techniques that combine traditions of high fired porcelain with low temperature salt glazing. Light sheets of fibreglass, delicate as spun silk, give structure and resilience to each piece. "Porcelain is like pure spirit, always white. Pots are put in the kiln, touching each other to make a maze through which the flames must pass. Glazes speak of their journey through the transforming fire. In a sense it is ...