Ainslie Murray is an artist, architect and academic. Born in Adelaide, she graduated from the University of Adelaide with a Bachelor of Architecture, 1st Class Honours in 1999.
It was as an undergraduate that Murray first became fascinated with Indian architecture, spending considerable time in Fiji and later undertaking pilgrimages to India in order to study the history and evolution of Indian art and architecture. She also developed a fascination with Japanese art and architecture. Experiencing these cultures first hand inspired and informed her art practice, which is based on the relationship between human gesture and architectural space.
Through her work Murray endeavours to show a new way of looking at architectural space, using predominantly translucent and white materials to convey purity in form and content, and to allow for a range of possibilities in terms of light and shadows. Murray’s architectonic installations are tactile as well as visual works of art.
In 2006 Murray commenced a practice-based PhD in Visual Arts at Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney. In 2007 she began working as a lecturer in the Architecture Program of the Faculty of the Built Environment, University of NSW, and has written both on her teaching and her art works in various Australian and international publications.
Murray has exhibited in numerous solo and group shows. Exhibition projects in Australia include 'Ganga’, Muse Gallery (2003); 'Bahanaa’, Little Gallery (2003); 'Sound-Maker’s Place’, SAUC Gallery (2004); 'Exhibition G02’, Sydney College of the Arts (2005); 'The Interference Project’, Tin Sheds Gallery (2007); and 'Tactile Imagination’, Ivan Dougherty Gallery (2007). She has exhibited internationally in India (2004) Japan (2006) Canada (2007), and Tibet (2008).
Murray has been awarded numerous grants and scholarships for the development of her work, from Australia Council grants to internal research scholarships through the University of NSW Faculty of the Built Environment. Most significantly, in 2007 she won the Beth Winspear Scholarship, Walking and Art Residency, at The Banff Centre in Alberta, Canada; and in 2009 she was awarded the University of New South Wales studio at the Cite des Arts, Paris.
- Writers:
- Thorogood, Nicola
Catherine De Lorenzo
- Date written:
- 2011
- Last updated:
- 2011
