One aim of the Barossa Women’s Artist Residency is to provide established female artists an opportunity to experiment and grow their practice within the environs of the Barossa region, creating work in the context of an in response to “place”.
Throughout the duration of her stay in the Barossa, amongst the comings and goings of exploration and experiencing the region to connect with ‘place’, Ruth Murray will work from a newly prepared residency Studio space at the Barossa Regional Gallery.
“The opportunity to engage with the area of Barossa through my work is really exciting for me – much of my work is about personal connections with particular places…
The outsider’s perspective is a different way of encountering a place to someone who sees it changing year to year and decade to decade. A temporary, immediate vividness, bereft of the understanding that comes with familiarity. I would use this residency to develop new work around this aspect of personal encounters with settings, and further explore the human partiality we bring to such moments.”
“I love the process of staying and looking, and bringing things back to the studio and finding meaning.”
“As a figurative painter, external influences form a large part of my inspiration; my experiences on previous artist residencies have affected and inspired me in different ways – leading to unexpected points of departure. The preparatory stages of my paintings involve a lot of experimentation. I stage and direct the scenes from which I work using the materials and locations around me.” – RUTH MURRAY
ABOUT RUTH MURRAY
Manchester based artist Ruth Murray is the 2024 recipient of the Barossa Regional Gallery’s Barossa Women’s Artist Residency.
Ruth graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2008 and was the Derek Hill Scholar at the British School at Rome. Her notable exhibitions include Northern Stars at the A Foundation, Saatchi’s 4 New Sensations, The Creative Cities Collection at the Barbican and the BP Portrait Award.
She was awarded an Elizabeth Greenshields grant in 2021 and 2024, she won the Jackson’s Painting Prize in 2020, and she was shortlisted for the Contemporary British Painting Prize in 2019 (subsequently elected as a member in 2023).
Her work is in private and public collections worldwide, including UNESCO’s Creative Cities Collection, the Whitaker Museum and Manchester Art Gallery.
Read more about Ruth Murray and the Barossa Women’s Artist Residency, click here.
@ruthmurrayartist
ruthmurray.com
Ruth Murray, Floyen, oil on canvas, 97cm x 137cm
