The work: Catherine Flora Murray, Fifteen, 2021. Terracotta, slip, underglaze and glaze, 23 x 21cm. Courtesy: the artist.
Catherine Flora Murray is a ceramist, whose practice considers histories of material culture, influenced by the folk craft techniques of Catalan pottery. Graduating with a Masters of Fine Art (Ceramics) from the National Art School, Sydney, her work critically reframes the traditional craft practice, embedding the personal experience of longing and estrangement from her matrilineal culture into these vessels. Her hand thrown pieces often utilise souvenir imagery; both real and imagined, melding symbols that evoke nostalgia with a traditional craft application and common decorative tropes. Murray seeks to signify the relationship between her observatory and participatory place within her mother’s culture through the process of her practice.