Dare to find radical empathy for the people around you - Murugiah

Murugiah returns to Daring Creativity for a conversation that feels like watching someone step fully into who they were always meant to be. 

A multidisciplinary artist trained in architecture, living and working in London, Murugiah has spent the years since his last appearance developing a deeply personal body of work — acrylic paintings that fuse his digital aesthetic with a new emotional rawness, rooted in his Sri Lankan heritage and shaped by a decade of intentional craft. ~

 One email to the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration led, against all expectations, to an invitation to open the entire centre with his debut solo exhibition.

This is a conversation about patience, pursuit and the quiet power of just doing the work — without waiting for permission, without chasing the outcome, and without needing the world to show up before you get started.

Key takeaways:

• Creating your own opportunity is not a strategy — it's a mindset. One email sent from a place of genuine excitement changed the entire trajectory of Murugiah's career
• Emotional heft takes time. The years spent developing a visual aesthetic were necessary before the personal, introspective work could emerge
• Following the fun keeps you present. When imposter syndrome strips you of the now, curiosity and play bring you back
• Tactility is a response, not nostalgia. Moving into acrylic painting was a deliberate turn towards what AI cannot replicate — intuitive, human, physical decision-making
• The journey is the reward. The hours at the table, the meetings, the exchanges — those are what you carry. The response to the work is secondary
• Radical empathy fuels introspection. Putting yourself in someone else's shoes — even a bus driver's — creates the internal awareness that feeds deeply personal work
• A debut doesn't need to come early to matter. Coming to it at 38, with a full life behind him, made Murugiah's show richer and more resonant than speed could ever have allowed

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