 His family's farm raised sheep and crops until the mid-1970s.As a tertiary student, Murray studied art in Ballarat and Melbourne.In 1978 he started travelling through Australia, and by 1980 he moved to Papunya (about 240 km north-west of Alice Springs) where he worked as a teacher, truck driver and outstation worker, both there and at Kintore (about 530 km west of Alice Springs).