Blue Vase with Red Rim

About Blue Vase with Red Rim

This contemporary blue ceramic vase has an organic shape inspired by nature.

Paula Murray’s superb ceramic work is valued for its timeless beauty. Using her own recipe for clay, over multiple firings, Murray hand forms her vessels employing a number of different techniques to infill, knit together, sandblast or burnish the interior/exterior of her work. This blue piece with a distinctive red rim displays her unique signature—fine, wavy lines on the surface add subtle texture and definition inside and out.

“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 and 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 in Meech Lake, in Gatineau Park, since 1980.
Exhibiting 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.