Illumination

Brett Murray was born in Pretoria in 1961 and studied at the University of Cape Town, where he was awarded his Master of Fine Arts degree in 1988 with distinction. The title of his dissertation is A Group of Satirical Sculptures Examining Social and Political Paradoxes in the South African Context. As an undergraduate, he won many prestigious awards, scholarships and bursaries. From 1991 to 1994, he established the sculpture department at the University of Stellenbosch.

Murray has since exhibited extensively in South Africa and abroad. In 1999 he co-founded, with other artists and cultural practitioners, Public Eye, a section 27 company that manages and initiates art projects in the public arena to develop a more significant profile for public art in Cape Town.

He has won many art commissions and competitions throughout his career and was nominated as the Standard ank Young Artist for 2002. He has had many solo exhiitions since his career started. Murray's work is housed in numerous South African and International pulic and private collections.

For Illumination, Murray used the woodcut technique. With a woodcut, the negative areas that are not printed are removed using carving tools, leaving these areas of the matrix in relief. The raised surface of the matrix receives the ink. Ink is rolled onto this raised positive surface using a brayer or roller, and the image is then printed onto paper. The area below the surface, which does not receive ink, will remain the colour of the paper. The individuality of the relief lies in the energy, directness, authority and spontaneity that can be given to the cut image using various carving tools.