Brett Murray - Brood

In a world spiked with conflict and uncertainty we seek comfort and safety. Often those closest to us are this sanctuary. The value of family and friends, there to offer hearts and hand holding can never be underplayed. It’s those close to us who fill the pauses of life, who we turn to in trouble, and want to protect the most.  It’s especially in fraught moments and flux that our brood and brethren take precedence. Brett Murray has been thinking about this, and his own humans, a lot. 

This was evident in work that he created whilst at home with his family during Covid lockdown. These made up a deeply personal 2021 show called Limbo. Now this theme extends into a related body of sculptures and reliefs with a show at Circa Johannesburg entitled Brood. In its elephants embracing and groups of monkeys huddled together, you know Murray has continued to think of his own wife and children and their lives. And the lives of others. 

“When I exhibited Limbo in London as the Pandemic was starting to abate, I was surprised. What I thought I had produced was a single-issue body of work. A response to lockdown and our shared fears. A fragile tenderness. Our shared breath had been held for a few years. On seeing the works installed, however, a broader reading seemed possible. Implicit rather than explicit. The turmoil of the world seemed to weigh heavily on these works as they gaze heavenwards with both trepidation and in a search for answers. They certainly reflect my current state of mind.”, says Murray. 

Consider a 2023 tainted by war, economic turmoil, xenophobia, a climate crisis, the continued rise of populism – no wonder we resonate with the creatures conjured by Murray. These symbols of the family unit together, touching, protected, and protecting speak to us all. 

“You value your family and friends so much more when the world is going crazy”, explains the Capetonian.” It’s taken me many years to realize the importance of intimacy and the confidence to have this tenderness present in my work. Now I get it completely”. 

Of course, what Murray is speaking to here is not only a sense of wisdom and honesty that comes with getting older, but a vulnerability and a softness too. “I felt quite exposed creating these sculptures. I’m my worst critic – and worried that what I was doing was schmaltzy, so the process made me vulnerable”, he explains. 

The intimate exploration might seem an especially surprising shift for an artist who is acclaimed for his biting commentary of the political and ‘perpetrators’ in society, but as Murray explains, “all satirists have a vision of better future, and these works might reflect on that”. 

Equally, where Murray’s work often combines hard-hitting words and images, here he has let the simplified forms and materials of these silent animal avatars do all the talking. “Words and images live in my mind together, but it was really interesting to only focus on the sculptural here - it’s not as obvious as text”, Murray says.

He goes on to add that, “prior to this body of work, I had made a series of sculptures in marble that lent my forms a generosity and an intimacy that is so different to my familiar bronzes. This materiality has encouraged me be more compassionate in other mediums as well.”  

And that’s just it - for the viewer it’s the visceral, genuine tenderness, rather than sentimentality that strikes a chord. These works are a reminder that we wage a war for a better world because of those we love. 

For more information please contact gallery@everard.co.za