James William Murray works across painting, sculpture and photography, treating these media as equally generative sites of making. His approach is formal, minimal, and conceptual, yet grounded in embodied and emotional encounters with the material world. Central concerns of the work include mediated touch, indexical trace, loss and bodily fragility, with memento mori and the relic recurring as key points of reference. He draws on a range of aesthetic discourses including Paleolithic mark-making, Classicism, Christian iconography, Conceptual art, and Minimalism. His work develops in interrelated strands, building a reflexive call and response between concepts, forms, materials, and techniques. Handprints made with wine appear as faded vestiges on jute and linen; graphite is burnished onto wood panels until surfaces become dark, reflective fields; brass tubes brazed with silver form skeletal frameworks from which cruciforms break free of their constraints.
Bio
James William Murray (b. 1988) is a British artist living and working in Brighton, UK, and Heiloo, The Netherlands. He received an MA in Photography in 2015 from the University of Brighton. Murray has presented his work in international solo, group, and two-person exhibitions at venues including Alice Amati, London (2025); Dr Julius | AP, Berlin (2025); Saturation Point, London (2024); Stephane Simoens Contemporary Fine Art, Knokke, Belgium (2024, 2022, 2021, 2018, 2017); Museum Jan Heestershuis, Schijndel, The Netherlands (2024); iCOON Museum, Hoek van Holland, The Netherlands (2024); Canopy Collections, London (2023); The Church Tower of Sint Anna ter Muiden, Sluis, The Netherlands (2023); PS, Amsterdam (2023); Abingdon Studios, Blackpool, UK (2021); Rule Gallery, Denver, CO, USA (2021, 2019); and Towner Eastbourne, UK (2018, 2016).
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​Contact
E-mail: jameswilliammurray[at]gmail.com
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Gallery
Stephane Simoens Contemporary Fine Art
Golvenstraat 7
8300 Knokke-Zoute, Belgium
​Tel: +32 476 475 928
E-mail: info[at]stephanesimoens.com
Work available at
Canopy Collections
3 Bloomsbury Place
London WC1A 2QA
United Kingdom
E-mail: contact@canopy-collections.com
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RULE Gallery
808 Santa Fe Drive, Denver, CO, USA
204 E San Antonio St, Marfa TX, USA
​Tel: +1 303 800 6776
E-mail: info[@]rulegallery.com