Murat Urali

Murat is a Turkish-born Australian artist who proactively embraces the concepts of Kitsch and Camp in his art practice. Prior to relocating to Australia in 204, Murat had a successful career in the theatre, TV and film industries, but it was not until 2011 that he succumbed to the lure of the National Art School when he enrolled in the Fine Arts program of study, achieving a long-held desire in the process. He graduated with a Master’s degree in Fine Art (research) in 2017. In 2018, he spend three months at the British School at Rome, in a fully funded artist-in-residence role and in 2021 he was selected as one of the finalists for the Dobell Prize.

In his practice, Murat explores figuration and patterned abstraction, combining illusionistic representation and geometric compositional formats, melding Turkic and Persian ornamentation with the persuasive painting style of Western Baroque. The resulting compositions are invariably complex and multilayered, often allegorical and somethings comedic, depending of course on the viewers point of view.