Brett Murray: Brood
Everard Read Gallery, London
15 October – 6 November 2025
Artist portrait with sculptures
Photo © Mike Hall
Everard Read London presents an exhibition of bronze and marble sculptures by acclaimed South African artist, BRETT MURRAY, on the eve of major survey of his sculpture at the Norval Foundation, Cape Town, opening December 2025.
This body of work traces its origins to the start of this decade and the artist’s experience of the global pandemic. It marks what writer, Noah Swinney, describes as “an idiomatic shift in Murray’s work from polemics to elegy; a transition from what the artist has called, an accusatory position to one that is more compassionate and empathetic.” *
The sculptural forms that Brett Murray created while at home with his family during lockdown, became two deeply personal exhibitions called Limbo, which opened in 2021 and 2022, in London and Cape Town respectively. Murray’s sculptures in these shows embodied the value of family and friendship and the lived experience that, in fraught and frightening moments, our brood and brethren take precedence.
This theme extended into a related body of sculptures and reliefs for Murray’s 2024 Johannesburg exhibition, aptly titled, Brood - a reference to both family and the posture of fretting. In a world mired in conflict, uncertainty and political tumult, Brett Murray continues to reflect and express our collective need to seek solace and safety and find sanctuary in the humans to whom we are closest. “These works are not argumentative, they’re meditative,” observed art critic Graham Wood**. “They’re not subversive, they’re introspective. They’re not about intellect, they’re about emotion. They’re not about politics, they’re about relationships.”
For his London exhibition, Brett Murray continues this intimate exploration through the creatures that emerged during the bewildering time of the global pandemic, and which continue to feel acutely relevant in a time of war and global turmoil. For some of his silent, animal avatars, the world seems to weigh heavily as they gaze heavenwards with trepidation, searching for answers. Others are brooding and subdued.
Huddled together or clinging to one another, many of Murray’s sculptures convey a poignant tenderness and vulnerability. These symbols of the family unit - together, touching, protected, and protecting - strike a universal chord. While some works evoke pathos, others stoke unease and allude to an inherent violence. The hopeful is countered with gaping holes that speak to the loss and hurt that are an integral part of all human experience.
* Noah Swinney, Brett Murray, Brood: The Lost Object & The Animal Series, to be published in 2026
** Graham Wood, Financial Mail (South Africa), 15-21 February 2024
EVERARD READ LONDON
80 Fulham Road London, SW3 6HR
