Kendal Murray’s miniature sculptures are a fascinating combination of materials including repurposed domestic objects ranging from crockery and compact mirrors to children’s toys. For Murray, these items become the foundation for her to create new worlds with an abundance of vegetation ready for exploration.
As the Sydney-based artist explains, her latest exhibition “looks at the significant relationship between childhood play in nature, children’s wellbeing, and the cultivation of their environmental identity.” There’s a meticulous balance between the familiar and the otherworldly in these works—appealing to the imagination. In Daytime Climb, High Time Rhyme, 2022, a teacup forms a mountain that two figures have scaled—they stand at the top and gaze across the horizon. Meanwhile, Run, Run, Fun Won, 2022, features a figure running with two dogs through grasslands—the landscape brimming out of a clutch purse.
The rhyming titles of Murray’s sculptures encourage us to embrace our curiosity and look closer at the intricate details of these creations. View, in pictures, Murray’s captivating and inventive works for In the Smile of a Tree.
In the Smile of a Tree
Kendal Murray
Flinders Lane Gallery
7 September—15 October
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