Charlie Murray

Charlie Murray is remembered at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Secondary School as quite the artistic talent. During his time at high school, he was actively involved in arts programs and constantly developed his talents through visual arts and music clubs.

After high school, Charlie attended the University of Guelph for Fine Arts and was awarded the Faculty Award twice as the most promising candidate of the program. Since graduating, he’s gone on to pursue an interdisciplinary arts career, which includes performance, sculpture, installation and music. He says, “Rather than settling on a specific art form to express myself, I traverse various mediums to demonstrate diverse thinking. Sometimes a musical thought can be embodied through sculpture or sculpture through performance.”

Charlie has been busy utilizing his talents to create a variety of multimedia artwork, performances and installations. Alongside a few friends, he contributed to the performance group “Still Boys” that can be described as a “boy-band staged around a puppeteered Cyclops.” He’s also collaborated with friend, Sebastian Butt, to invent a 15 word language called KRELM, where each word is sung and paired with a gestural movement, resulting in a musical conversation!

Most recently, Charlie and other local artists built an immersive subterranean sculpture titled, “Underground Space Station” in rural Ontario. The installation began in 2009 and is still a work in process. This habitable space has nine major living areas made out of salvaged industrial-sized containers, and investigates the concepts of escapism, exploration and the unconscious.

Members of the public can view Charlie’s work at The National Art Gallery of Canada in Toronto. Two of his paintings were purchased by the Gallery and are now part of its permanent collection.