Endurance

About Endurance

This contemporary ceramic vessel was hand-built by Paula Murray.

The distinctive ethereal work of Paula Murray has garnered the Canadian artist international praise. Inspired by the beauty of the natural world, Murray creates pieces designed to challenge the limits of working with fine porcelain.
Using clay and glazes that she mixes in her own studio, vessels such as Endurance redefine contemporary ceramics.
This creamy coloured sculptural vessel is hand-formed from Jingdezhen porcelain that is “fired to the point of collapse.” Murray mixes in additional layers of stoneware clay, porcelain slip and adds glaze to create texture and a fine finish with detailed vertical markings. Its undulating organic form displays her signature—fine craquelure or ruptures of the surface defined by a darker color inside, adding subtle texture and definition outside.

“Tested are the limits of endurance and resilience. I create works evocative of the precarious nature of existence. I look for beauty in the struggle.” Paula Murray

“For Paula Murray, the clay vessel is a canvas to explore the tensions of life’s many paradoxes: culture and nature, deliberation and chance, fragility and strength and, most importantly, the individual and the collective.”
Rachel Gottlieb, Ceramics

Paula Murray was born in Ottawa. She studied science at the University of Ottawa and ceramics at Sheridan College.
Elected to the International Academy of Ceramics (2017) and the Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts (2006), she has based her full-time studio practice from Meech Lake, in Gatineau Park since 1980.

Participating in prestigious exhibitions in Canada, Italy, China, Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Portugal, Romania and the USA, she has received several awards and creation grants.

In 2021, Paula Murray was awarded one of the highest honours granted by the Quebec government in recognition of an exceptional career in the arts—the Prix d’excellence from le Conseil des métiers d’art du Québec. In 2022, she received the Kito Prize at the Jingdezhen International Ceramics Biennale in China.

Public collections include the World Korean Ceramic Foundation Museum, Yingge Ceramic Museum, Taiwan, Museum of Ceramics, Faenza, Italy, Canada House, London, UK, and in Canada, the Gardiner Museum, Museum of History, and Art Bank.