The soon-to-open Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration invites visitors straight into a storm with its inaugural exhibition:
MURUGIAH: Ever Feel Like…
This show proves that illustration is not merely narrative—it is an emotional experience. Surreal, colorful, and at times unsettling—like the human mind itself.
A dark subtext behind the colors
Drawing from his Sri Lankan roots and childhood years in Wales, artist MURUGIAH constructs a universe spanning Hollywood cinema, Japanese anime, science fiction, and pop-punk. Yet at the center of this universe lies the same question:
“Have you ever felt like this?”
Characters wearing skulls, figures surrounded by flowers, faces lost in rainbow spirals… Each speaks to identity, mental health, and the inner conflicts of the modern world.
New works in the atmosphere of Motor House
The Grade II-listed historic Motor House will host MURUGIAH’s newly commissioned works.
Vibrant prints, large-scale canvas paintings, and sketches will merge with the space’s industrial texture to create a visual vortex.
Visitors will sense the playful yet profound relationship an architect-trained artist builds with line, form, and space.
Illustration as mood
The exhibition fuses the fragility of identity and mental health with the glossy surface of pop culture. On one hand, it showcases the mastery of a designer who has collaborated with Refugee Week, Apple, and Elton John; on the other, it candidly exposes the chaos of his inner world. MURUGIAH’s works redefine illustration not as linear expression but as a reflection of emotional states.
Apartment No:26 Note
This exhibition perfectly encapsulates the Quentin Blake Centre’s vision: positioning illustration not only in nostalgic lines of the past but in the psychological and cultural layers of today. MURUGIAH hides the complex mood of contemporary Britain within a burst of color, using a kind of “digital psychedelia” aesthetic.
And in doing so, he leaves the viewer with this feeling:
“Even beautiful things can sometimes be dizzying.”
📅 Opening: May 2026
📍 Location: The Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration, Clerkenwell, London
🎨 Artist: MURUGIAH
🧠 Theme: Identity, mental health, cultural hybridity
💬 Supporters: Arts Council England, National Lottery Heritage Fund, Bagri Foundation
🌐 quentinblakecentre.org
