Murray Favro

1940–

Murray Favro (1940– ) is a Canadian artist based in London, Ontario. Favro’s work is multidisciplinary through his use of drawing, sculpture, performance, installation, film projections, lighting effects, computer and electronic technology.

Born in Huntsville Ontario, Favro moved to London, Ontario in 1958 where he studied art at H.B. Beal Technical and Commercial School.

Favro’s work investigates the nature of perception and reality, as well as engages with the question of what constitutes art itself. Favro is considered to be an important figure in London Regionalism, developed in the late 1950s and 1960s, which includes artists such as Jack Chambers, Greg Curnoe, and Ron Martin. The movement had artists acknowledge their home as the centre and subject of creative activity. Many of these artists acknowledged yet refused to situate themselves in the metropolitan centre of the art world and refused to participate in ‘movements’.

The 1960s are considered formative years for Favro’s practice as he developed a growing desire to evaluate the boundaries between art and life. He rejected the American led Pop Art movement of the period and resisted the mass-produced image and object. This allowed Favro to develop art through building and repurposing the readymade. In 1970, Favro received a Canada Council Arts Bursary that allowed him to quit painting and pursue his interest in machinery and other experimental mediums. He worked with guitars, airplanes, film images and other interventions.

Significant works include Favro’s “projected paintings,” including “Country Road” (1971-72), “Synthetic Lake” (1972-3), and “Van Gogh’s Room” (1973-74).

His work has been the subject of a major retrospective organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario in 1983 and in 1998 at the London Regional Art & Historical Museum.

Favro received the Gerhson Iskowitz Award in 1997 and the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts in 2007. He is a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.