SK Arts | Audie Murray

February 2023 marks the beginning of SK Arts' 75th anniversary year. On February 3, 1948, the Saskatchewan Arts Board opened its doors, supporting artists across the province. As we celebrate this milestone, we look to honour the past, the present and the future of the province's vibrant arts community with the We Celebrate You campaign. SK Arts asked 75 established artists to nominate one strong, emerging artist, program or training opportunity that makes the future of Saskatchewan arts exciting.

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Zachari Logan - Photo of colorful flowers in a ditch, Pride Blooms a Ditch, from Eunuch Tapestries Series. Collection of the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, Kansas.

Photo credit: Pride Blooms a Ditch, from Eunuch Tapestries Series, Zachari Logan, 2020. Collection of the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, Kansas.

Zachari Logan

Canadian artist Zachari Logan works mainly with large-scale drawing, ceramics and installation practices. Exploring the intersections between identity, memory and place, Logan re-wilds his body as an expression of queerness. Logan has exhibited widely throughout North America, Europe and Asia and is found in private and public collections worldwide, including National Gallery of Canada, Art Gallery of Ontario, Remai Modern, Mackenzie Art Gallery, McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Leslie-Lohman Museum, Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art (NMOCA), 21cMuseums Hotel Collection and Thetis Foundation, among others. Logan has attended many residencies; including Vienna’s Museums Quartier MQ21 Program, the International Studio and Curatorial Program in Brooklyn, Wave Hill Botanical Gardens Winter Workspace Program in the Bronx and was artist in residence at the Tom Thomson Shack at the McMichael Gallery.

Logan has worked collaboratively with several celebrated artists, including Ross Bleckner and Sophie Calle, and his work has been featured in many publications worldwide, including BBC Culture, The Boston Globe, The Globe and Mail, Border Crossings, Huffington Post, Canadian Art and Hyperallergic to name a few. Logan’s recent projects include the two-person exhibition, Shadow Of The Sun: Ross Bleckner and Zachari Logan, at Wave Hill Botanical Gardens in the Bronx, Wildflower, a solo exhibition at the Canadian High Commission in London (UK), and Ghost Meadows at Remai Modern in Saskatoon. Logan’s current exhibition, Remembrance, opened at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, in May 2022 and runs through May 2023. Logan’s first book of poetry A Natural History of Unnatural Things, was published in the fall of 2021 by Radiant Press.

Audie Murray - Blue and white artwork of mirror and beads

Photo credit: We Are Always Love, Audie Murray, 2022. Photo credit: Blaine Campbell, courtesy of Burnaby Art Gallery.

Audie Murray

Audie Murray is a relative, dreamer, skin-stitcher and Michif visual artist based in Oskana kâ-asastêki (Regina, Treaty 4 territory). Murray holds a visual arts diploma from Camosun College, 2016; a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Regina, 2017; and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Calgary, 2022.

Her practice is informed by the process of making and visiting to explore themes of contemporary culture, embodied experiences and lived dualities. These modes of working assist with the recentering of our collective connection to the body, ancestral knowledge systems, space and time. She has exhibited widely, including at the Independent Art Fair, NYC; The Vancouver Art Gallery; Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow; and the Anchorage Museum. Murray is represented by Fazakas Gallery, located on Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Səl̓ílwətaʔ, and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm territory (Vancouver).

“…her work not only stood alongside more senior artists featured, but highlighted new, exciting emerging practices.” – Zachari Logan

I would like to nominate Audie Murray for this grant. Audie is an outstanding artist based here in Saskatchewan. I met Audie when I was teaching at the University of Regina. Audie was a BFA student whom I had the pleasure of teaching in 2017, and whose work and maturity left a huge impression. In the winter of 2022, I had the privilege of including Murray’s work in an exhibition I curated in London, UK. The exhibition, Lines In The Snow: Contemporary Canadian Drawing, was an exhibition that surveyed contemporary drawing practices across Canada, which in part, was intended to expand on ideas of what drawing is and how multi-faceted and exploratory the field has become in a short period of time, both across Canada and beyond. Murray, whose practice has continued to flourish since graduating in 2017, was an essential fit for the dialogue I was interested in exploring, as the strength of her work not only stood alongside more senior artists featured, but highlighted new, exciting emerging practices.