The first impression one gets when looking at a Murugiah creation is bright and bold, like biting into a fruit at the height of its ripeness. Unafraid to use vivid colors and memorable unusual characters in his paintings, sculptures, and more, the UK-born Sri Lankan’s work stands out in a way few others do. In a talk with Playboy, Murugiah tells us about his origins, his influences, and how he walked a path that led him to become the artist he is today.
Playboy: When did you realize you wanted to be an artist?
Murugiah: From the age of about 15 or 16 years old, I distinctively remember, [art] was the only subject I was good at. I showed a real tenacity and interest for art and design. I spent most of my free time drawing. When the rest of my schoolmates were studying for exams, I was just drawing, so it was a clear sign that I showed a lot of interest in this subject.
Playboy: You’ve mentioned your “strict Asian parents” in other interviews. How did they take it when you told them you wanted to pursue art?
Murugiah: In hindsight, they wanted what’s best for me, and worried about a career in the arts not being the most financially stable. They did suggest that I go into architecture as something that was art related, but had a nine to five and was linked to maths and physics.
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I did end up siding with their opinions and studying architecture for seven years. It has paid off in more ways than one, doing it that way. So I’m kind of thankful for their response.
Playboy: Now you have a career as an artist. How do they feel about it today versus back then?
Murugiah: They’re very proud. They love seeing the work out in the world. And when I get to take them to things that exist in the real world, they get a real sense of the impact it has. I got them to come visit my last public art sculpture, which is somewhat architecturally related, because it’s a thing that sits within an architectural site. They got a real kick out of that. So it’s fun that they’re happy about it.
Playboy: You say that architecture actually ended up helping in the end. Could you tell me more about that?
Murugiah: Well, it actually taught me a lot of things with regards to positive and negative space within the built environment, thinking about things on a much wider scale. When you study architecture, you are thinking about historical context within a project. You’re thinking about how this particular building project relates back to all of the buildings before it, you know, in terms of referencing things from the past, and what cultures were like in the past, with regards to how you use a building.
The other thing it taught me was also that I’m not afraid to jump into any type of project. Now, I can do a public art sculpture. I can do a magazine cover, a sculpture made of found objects. I think, working within the architectural space, or studying within that space, it’s such a broad, open subject, and it requires you to learn a lot. It then taught me to to apply that thinking to my artwork as well.
Playboy: What artists did you admire, both when you were younger and now?
Murugiah: I studied the works of Barbara Hepworth, the British sculptor Henry Moore. I was looking at Andy Warhol’s pop art a lot when I was younger. [Also,] I was looking at old botanical drawings in big florist books from the 1800s. It was a real mix of stuff.
I’m really interested in artists that have a similar multidisciplinary aspect to their work, people like Jaime Hayon or James Jean. Jaime Hayon does paintings, sculptures, products. He’s very much an artist, designer and architect, as well as his public installations. [And] James Jean’s ability to jump from a film poster project to a fine art painting – it feels like they come from the same artist, but it speaks to very different audiences. That’s another big inspiration to me: someone who also does film posters and is constantly battling against whether this film poster should look more like my work or should link closely to the film or not.
Playboy: What was the first piece of art you created you felt proud of?
Murugiah: I did a portrait of Robert De Niro from The Deer Hunter in my art lessons at school, and they had decided to auction it off to the audience of the school fashion show. It was quite fun, and my mum bought it. So that was really sweet of her to buy that painting. That’s probably the proudest because it was something that, you know, put in front of a large audience, was very nerve wracking, and then my mum decided to buy it.
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Playboy: Your work is full of vivid colors, very alive. Tell us about the creation process and your relationship with color.
Murugiah: I was born and raised in the UK, a very gray country. It’s very depressing here, very rainy all of the time. And London, the city I live in, is even more gray, so it’s gray on top of gray. So I think my interest in introducing color into the world is very much coming from a place of, what can I do that’s different? You know, if I moved to sunny California, I’d probably start making kind of dreary, dark images as a result.
I have Sri Lankan parents, so I’m kind of also linking back to my Sri Lankan heritage. A lot of my work is about identity, because I don’t really know where I come from, being born and raised in UK with Sri Lankan parents. Part of my journey will be to learn more about my heritage and learn more about some of the more spiritual aspects and kind of meditational aspects of the Sri Lankan religion and see how I can feed it into my work narratively.
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A lot of my characters wear masks because they don’t know who they are. I did a piece for Fangoria where my character was kind of pulling open their mask, and what was revealed underneath was this gloopy monster, just because it was for Fangoria, but it had a deeper meaning, because it was more about not knowing who I am, you know. So I try and feed that identity stuff into as much of my work as possible.
Playboy: If you could collab with any artist, living or dead, who would you like it to be?
Murugiah: I think it would be Hieronymus Bosch. That work was is so old, but also so surreal and so weird. And you just would never have thought that strange thinking would exist in that time period. I think putting in my characters with his characters would be quite fun.
Playboy: As a freelance artist, what advice would you offer others hoping to pursue an artistic career?
Murugiah: I’ve been through the wringer on this. I’ve been been an architect. I’ve been a illustrator, designer. I’ve worked at various studios. I transitioned from architecture to art and design in 2012. All of this work that you see at the moment that really only started in 2019, so if you look back far enough, you will find so many different styles that I’ve done, and so many different avenues that I’ve gone down. And the lesson I’ve learned in all of that was to make work that felt more unique to my personal story, and there’s a real methodology towards it.
I decided to make work that spoke to my thematic influences, things like mental health and identity and the impending doom of our planet. Thematic stuff linked with the aesthetic things that I’m into: 1960s pushpin studios, graphical art, sci-fi and surrealist movies. So it’s the mixture of thematic and esthetic. And once you put those together, they’re very unique to your interests. You can develop something that’s very unique to you. And I think the more unique and the more niche you go with your story and your work, you become better known for it.
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