Design and Art Australia Online

Kate Murdoch was born in 1973 in Melbourne. She attended Firbank Grammar School and won the school’s acquisitive Turner Art Prize for her year in 1991. In 1995 completed a Bachelor of Fine Art at Monash University, culminating in a graduate show at Charles Nodrum Gallery in Richmond. On completing her undergraduate study she spent a year working in Hong Kong.

In 1997 Murdoch held her first solo show in conjunction with the Melbourne Fringe Festival. Her second solo show was in 1999 at Gallery 5 in St Kilda. Simultaneously she was studying Graphic Arts at RMIT and in the following few years she worked as a graphic designer for various companies while maintaining her art career. During the years 1998 to 2004 Murdoch exhibited in group shows at various commercial galleries including Jackman Gallery (St Kilda), Manyung Gallery (Mt Eliza), and Linden Gallery (St Kilda). In 2002 she held a show at Goya Gallery in Southbank in collaboration with sculptor Martin Hodge, whose work had a similar focus on organic form.

In 2004 Murdoch was selected as a finalist in the Wyndham City Contemporary Art Prize in Werribee. In the same year she exhibited with Bungay Art House in the Melbourne Affordable Art Show at the Royal Exhibition Buildings in Carlton. At the end of this year she had her first child, following which she withdrew from her artistic practise for a time. In 2007 she was part of a group exhibition of five Melbourne artists, held at Bob Cutiz Gallery in Berlin, Germany. At the beginning of 2008 her second child was born and in the same year she was a finalist in the Stanthorpe Art Prize in Queensland and the Port Lincoln Art Prize in South Australia.

At the time of writing Murdoch was an artist in residence at Blue Door Gallery at the Gasworks Art Park complex in Albert Park.

Writers:

Murdoch, Kate

Date written:

2011

Last updated:

2011