Wendy Murray (artist)

Wendy Murray (born 1974) is a visual artist and arts educator formerly known as Mini Graff. Utilising the former persona, Murray worked as an urban street poster artist between 2003–2010, who worked in and around the city's urban fringe. From 2014 Murray's art expanded into traditional forms of drawing and artist book design, whilst still engaging with social and political issues through poster making. The artist's use of letraset transfers in graphic design, alongside vibrant colours and fluorescent inks, references the work of studios from the 1960s through to the 1980s, including the community-based Earthworks Poster Collective[1] and Redback Graphix.[2] The 2018 collaboration with The Urban Crew – a 17 person collective of socially engaged geographers, planners, political scientists and sociologists – resulted in the Sydney – We Need to Talk! artist book,[3] addressing issues of development, transport congestion, housing affordability and commercialisation of public space.

For the American writer, see Wendy Murray.

Wendy Murray
Born1974 (age 46–47)
New Zealand
NationalityNew Zealand
OccupationVisual artist, graphic designer, academic
Known forPoster design
Websitewww.wendymurray.com.au

Background

Wendy Murray was born in New Zealand. She gained a Bachelor in Design from Massey University, New Zealand, in 1999 and, following a move to Australia, earned a Master of Fine Arts from the National Art School, Sydney, in 2014. Between 2008–12 she was Project Coordinator at MAY’S – The May Lane Street Art Project, Sydney. Her academic teaching career included positions as Lecturer in Fine Art Printmaking at the National Art School, Sydney between 2010–15, and Lecturer in Printmedia at the Sydney College of the Arts between 2011–12 and from 2015–19. Wendy Murray was a consultant researcher in Geography and Urban Studies at the University of Western Sydney during 2013–14.[4]

Work as Mini Graff

The streets and inhabitants of Sydney's urban fringe provide the content and impetus for her work. Mini Graff stenciled and printed images onto a variety of media (walls, boards, vinyl, paper, rarely canvas) which strongly relate to the given environment and community, transforming an anonymous repetitive urban landscape into a unique and personal aesthetic experience. Parody, humor and social commentary are common themes in Graff's work – notions that are translated into experiments with scale in public space – from discrete interventions to large-scale installations.

Graff has participated in several public art projects including Sydney Art and About, plus coordinated and presented numerous printmaking workshops to various audience groups including high school students, tertiary institutions and public art galleries. Graff's recent Suburban Roadhouse series explores concepts of trademark and ownership in public/domestic space.

Mini Graff is featured in the video for Deepchild's song "Blackness of the Sea".[5]

Techniques

Mini Graff's primary medium is handcut stencils transferred with aerosol paint or daubed with sponges. Her installations range from single colour, single stencil works to multiple stencils and colours incorporating 3D elements such as handcut butterflies, plastic figures of people and model houses.

Depending on the nature and exposure of the site, Mini Graff also pre-prints onto paper, stickers and wallpaper, and hangs them in the place of painted stencils.

Mini Graff's recent work has expanded into exploring colour and abstract patterns using brightly coloured adhesive vinyl strips to draw pedestrians' attention to common street structures. Her work demonstrates how a simple treatment applied to an object rendered invisible by familiarity, such as a sign post, can return it to our awareness.

Exhibitions and workshops
  • 2019 – Lead artist, Girls Are Not Toys (Workshop), Gympie Regional Art Gallery, QLD, AUS.
  • 2019 – Sydney We Need To Talk! Wendy Murray & Friends, Cross Art Projects.
  • 2019 – Night & Day, Bathurst Regional Art Gallery,NSW, AUS.
  • 2018 – Colby Country, Megalo Print Studio + Gallery.
  • 2018 – FEMINAE – Typographic Voices of Women (group exhibition), Hoffmitz Milken Center for Typography, Art Center College of Design, CA USA.
  • 2018 – Propaganda (group exhibition), Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, VIC, AUS
  • 2017 – Chartjunk, Canberra Contemporary Art Space (CCAS), Canberra, ACT.
  • 2017 – The Drawing Exchange (group exhibition), Adelaide School of Art, SA, AUS.
  • 2017 – Amplify & Multiply (group exhibition), The Press at Colorado College, Colorado Springs, CO, USA
  • 2016 – Pull your punches, Hamilton Ink Spot, St Paul, MN, USA.
  • 2016 – Future Feminist Archive (group exhibition), Sydney University, NSW, AUS.
  • 2015 – My totem (workshop), Balit Gulynia, Aboriginal Community Group, Melbourne.
  • 2014 – Sextet (group exhibition), Delmar Gallery, NSW.
  • Brunswick Street Gallery Works on Paper 2010, May 2010, Melbourne, Australia[6]
  • Ikea Home Project, July–August 2009[7]
  • MAY's Retrospective 2009, Redfern, Australia, March–April 2009
  • GRRRLS, February 2008, aMbush Gallery, St Peters, Australia[8]
  • Urban Skins, August 2007, Pinnacles Gallery, Thuringowa, Australia
  • extra cheeese, Gallery FortyFour, Sydney, Australia[9]
  • Mays at MTV Gallery, September 2007, Sydney, Australia
  • Doppelganger Mix, Darlinghurst, Australia
  • Sydney Art and About, October 2006, Sydney, Australia
  • Building Sites Taking Shape, September 2006, Maitland, Australia[10]
  • Stencil Festival, August 2006, Melbourne/Sydney, Australia[11]
  • Post-it: An Exquisite Corpse, June 2006, Peloton Gallery, Sydney, Australia[12]
  • Mays Retrospective Exhibition, May 2006, Mays Gallery, St Peters, Australia[13]
  • Manly Arts Festival, September 2005, Manly, Australia
  • Sydney Design 05, August 2005, Sydney, Australia
  • StreetWorks (Forever), July 2005, Sydney, Australia
  • Sydney Esquisse 05, April 2005, Sydney, Australia[14]
  • Cut and Spray – An Exhibition of Stencil Art, April 2005, Volume Art Space, Newcastle, Australia
  • Box Street II, September 2005, Darlinghurst, Australia
  • Box Street I, September 2003, Darlinghurst, Australia

Residencies

Selected commissions and awards
  • 2018 – Australian War Memorial [18][19][20]
  • 2018 – University of Sydney Printer in Residence Award [21]
  • 2018 – Mount Alexander Shire Mechanics Lane poster commission.
  • 2018 – NAVA funding to produce a series of screen prints with Catherine O’Donnell.
  • 2018 – Love is Hard Work – Castlemaine, VIC [22][23]
  • 2017 – The Newtown Hub / Newtown Art Seat (awarded by Inner West Council) [24][25]
  • 2014 – Behind this Smile, Hobsons Bay City Council [26]
  • 2014 – Hobsons Bay City Council Mayoral Fund award to seed a screen print based social enterprise for at risk youth.
  • 2014 – Australian Print Council commission print award

Publications
  • Rebecca Beardmore, Talking in Print, IMPRINT Magazine, Print Council of Australia, volume 54, No.1, 2019, pp. 29–32.
  • Broke but not Broken, FEMINAE – Typographic Voices of Women, Hoffmitz Milken Center for Typography, ArtCenter College of Design, California, 2018, pg. 45–46.[27]
  • Colby Country, Imprint, Winter 2018, Volume 53, No.2. pg. 42–46.
  • Banksy in the Burbs, Art Guide, 2016.[28]
  • Antonia Aitken, Artist as Conduit, Imprint Magazine, Winter 2015, volume 50, No. 2, 2015.
  • K. Iveson, C. McAuliffe, W. Murray and M. Peet, Reframing Graffiti and Street Art in the City of Sydney, Report of the Mural, Street Art and Graffiti Review Project, City of Sydney Council, 2014, pp124.

Artist books
  • Night & Day – Hill End drawings by Wendy Murray, digital, perfect bound, edition 200, 2019.
  • Sydney – We Need to Talk!, digital, screen print, perfect binding / hand-bound, edition 100, 2018.
  • Pull Your Punches, digital, perfect bound, edition 75, 2017.
  • The Daily – Drawing Inspiration, digital, perfect bound, edition 75, 2017.[29]

Curatorial
  • Wendy Murray and Stuart Bailey, Fresh Blood – Redback Graphix and its Aftermath, Casula Powerhouse Gallery, 13 January – 17 March 2018.[30][31][32]

Education
  • 2014 – Master of Fine Arts from the National Art School, Sydney.
  • 1999 – Bachelor in Design from Massey University, New Zealand.

See also

References
  1. Therese Kenyon, Under a hot tin roof: Art, passion and politics at the Tin Shed art workshop, Power Publications, Sydney, 1995, 152p.
  2. Anne Zagala, Redback Graphix, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2008, 128p.
  3. Vanessa Berry, Talking Across Cities: the Urban Crew’s Sydney – We Need to Talk!’, Sydney – We Need to Talk Blog, 28 September 2018. Accessed 5 January 2019.
  4. Wendy Murray – Artist and Arts Educator (website), www.wendymurray.com.au
  5. Blackness of the Sea
  6. "Brunswick Street Gallery WOP 2010 Finalists". May 2010. Archived from the original on 15 August 2010.
  7. "The Ikea Home Project". July 2009. Archived from the original on 17 July 2011. Retrieved 15 August 2010.
  8. "GRRRLS". February 2008.
  9. "extra cheese". May 2007. Archived from the original on 5 October 2011.
  10. "Building Sites Taking Shape". September 2006.
  11. "Stencil Festival". August 2006. Archived from the original on 19 August 2008.
  12. "Post-it: An Exquisite Corpse". June 2006. Archived from the original on 1 September 2007.
  13. "Mini Graff's Panel for Mays". May 2006. Archived from the original on 19 July 2008.
  14. "Sydney Esquisse 05". April 2005.
  15. "Megalo Print Studio and Gallery". August 2010.
  16. "Hill End Press". May 2010. Archived from the original on 6 July 2011.
  17. "Mini Graff video interview at Hill End Press". May 2010.
  18. Propaganda – A Selection of Posters from the Australian War Memorial, Arts Review.
  19. Propaganda Exhibition, Australian Financial Review
  20. It's A Wrap – Typsetting and Printing, 4 April 2018 (blog)
  21. University of Sydney Printer in Residence Award (webpage)
  22. Love is Hard Work – Castlemaine, 2018
  23. Love is Hard Work – Castlemaine, 2018
  24. The Newtown Hub / Newtown Art Seat, 2017
  25. The Newtown Hub / Newtown Art Seat, 2017
  26. Behind this Smile, Hobsons Bay City Council, 2014
  27. FEMINAE – Typographic Voices of Women, 2018
  28. Banksy in the Burbs, Art Guide, 2016
  29. The Daily – Drawing Inspiration, National Library of Australia (catalogue entry).
  30. Wendy Murray on Political Posters and Unleashing Collective Power in Fresh Blood, Art Guide, 2018.
  31. Fresh Blood – Redback Graphix and its Aftermarth, 2018 (webpage)
  32. Fresh Blood – Redback Graphix, 2018 (webpage)

Further reading
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