Kel Mur reception

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Kel Mur

A sculpture.

Study 2 from "Converge: Studies on Cohabitation."

media release: Kel Mur is exhibiting new work in their show Converge: Studies of Cohabitation at the Pyle Center from Feb 1 through Feb 23 with an artist ‘meet and greet’ Monday, February 13, 5-7 pm. At the Pyle Center, 702 Langdon Street, Madison, WI 53706.

Gallery hours are 7am - 4pm during the week and during special events on weekends and evenings.

Artist statement:

“For this series of studies, I explore what it means to share a home with my romantic partner. Each piece shows our bodies segmented and intertwined as a contemplation of what it means to learn to navigate each other’s idiosyncrasies with care. We are each fragile in our own way. These works are made by taking plaster molds of my and my partner’s bodies and then casting them with strips of salvaged bedsheets embedded with wax. Each study forms a shape similar to a cocoon or a chrysalis, gesturing towards creating a space that nurtures transformation and maturation as we learn to live with each other.”

Kel Mur (she/they) grew up in New Jersey, graduated Cum Laude with a BA in Fine Art from Monmouth University in 2011, and received the Creativity in Studio Art Award for her senior honors thesis, Commodity. After her undergraduate studies, she relocated to New Orleans to develop her studio practice. Kel Mur has exhibited locally and nationally including Audubon Artists, Inc. 69th Annual Exhibition, The Salmagundi Art Club, New York, NY; La Femme, New Orleans Art Center curated by Don Marshall, New Orleans; Women’s Work in the Cyrus M. Running Gallery, Moorehead, Minnesota; Internal/External, Arts Council of Southeast Missouri, Cape Girardeau, Missouri; WHY MOM, Commonwealth Gallery, Madison; Master Pieces, Manifest Gallery, Cincinnati, Ohio; Storied References, North Illinois University Art Museum, DeKalb, Illinois; Empowerment vs. Exploitation, Cultural Center of Cape Cod, South Yarmouth, Massachusetts; and Reap a solo exhibition at Art + Literature Laboratory in Madison. She also collaborates with different chefs in her ongoing project series Feast: A Performative Art Dinner. Kel Mur has had artwork published in BARED: Contemporary Poetry and Art on Bras and Breasts (La Femmes Folles, 2016) and HOOT Online Magazine (November 2013, Issue 25), and illustrated the cover art for Sweetbitter by poet Stacey Balkun (Sundress Publications, 2022). She is a former member of the Catalyst Collective of New Orleans, an art and social action initiative in New Orleans, and has frequently volunteered for Mama Maji, a non-profit that funds water projects and entrepreneurial training for women in Kenya. Kel Mur earned her MFA at the University of Wisconsin – Madison in the Spring of 2020 and currently resides in Madison, WI where she has been recognized as one of the Madison Bridge Work Emerging Artists (2020-21) through Arts + Literature Laboratory, where she also held a brief tenure as Lead Curator. She is the co-curator of the Collateral Damage Project and Exhibition and has most recently become the Gallery and Studio Coordinator of River Arts Inc. in Prairie du Sac.