James William Murray
James William Murray: 1988 - 2026

30.05.26 - 30.06.26

James William Murray presents new works at Form. The exhibition extends the artist's longstanding concerns with tactility, corporeality, materiality, fragmentation, image-object relations, and tensions between subjectivity and objectivity. 

A cache of photographs in a munitions box brought home from Syria. Light caressing silver gelatin. The rose of hand-painted cheeks, an azure sweater, the impossible green of trees. Slotted screws and Irish linen. A woman I never knew but have always loved. The ceaseless, indifferent flow of time. Our Lady of Walsingham holding the feet of her dead son. The silence that must suffice after witnessing unspeakable violence. Breastplates and bullet casings. The Fifth Sunday of Easter 1945. Cotton scrim dyed in iron oxide and vinegar. The skin and bones of painting. Image-as-body and body-as-image. Orientations towards objects and others. The skin-like patina of brass oxidising from golden yellow through brown to green. Gaps through which a finger could pass and gaps through which a finger could not pass. The tear in the screen of language and signs that veils raw unmediated materiality. Indexes, icons, and symbols. The work of art as a carrier of tactility and corporeality and intimacy and desire and loss.

Untitled Cruciforms, 2026
plasma-cut plate brass, silver-brazed, (two parts)
39 × 49 × 2 cm (15.4 × 19.3 × 0.8 in) each

S.Roffey, 2026
hand-tinted silver gelatin photographs, 
vitrine with acrylic, plywood, linen, 
and brass screws, (two parts) 
42 × 32 × 5 cm (16½ × 12⅝ × 2 in) each

Fifth Sunday of Easter, 2026
iron oxide and vinegar on cotton
200 × 150 cm (78¾ × 59 in)

James William Murray (b. 1988) is a British artist living and working in Brighton, UK, and Heiloo, The Netherlands. He received an MA in Photography in 2015 from the University of Brighton. Murray has presented his work in international solo, group, and two-person exhibitions at venues including Alice Amati, London (2025); Dr Julius | AP, Berlin (2025); Saturation Point, London (2024); Stephane Simoens Contemporary Fine Art, Knokke, Belgium (2024, 2022, 2021, 2018, 2017); Museum Jan Heestershuis, Schijndel, The Netherlands (2024); iCOON Museum, Hoek van Holland, The Netherlands (2024); Canopy Collections, London (2023); The Church Tower of Sint Anna ter Muiden, Sluis, The Netherlands (2023); PS, Amsterdam (2023); Abingdon Studios, Blackpool, UK (2021); Rule Gallery, Denver, CO, USA (2021, 2019); and Towner Eastbourne, UK (2018, 2016).


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