Every Christmas, Battersea Power Station is transformed into a canvas. This tradition has inspired David Hockney and Wallace and Gromit. In 2024, Apple added a new name to this list: a British-Sri Lankan illustrator from Wales whose strange characters with tubular limbs, anime eyes, and inexplicably large boots have adorned one of London's most iconic facades for thousands of people who have never heard of it.
«"Seeing these trees projected onto the wall of Battersea Power Station was incredible," says Charmelan Murugia. "Very exciting." Now, something even bigger is coming. This Friday, the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration opens in London, where he will host his first solo exhibition. MURUGIAH: Ever Feel Like… , which runs until August 31. The choice of Murugia to organize the Center's first major exhibition is no coincidence. This in itself is a debate about whose imagination deserves the stage.
The artist the algorithm can't identify
Founded by legendary children's book illustrator Quentin Blake, the Centre is the UK's first institution dedicated entirely to illustration. Its mission is to challenge long-established hierarchies: to prove that an image created to accompany a story, a poster, or a record cover can carry as much emotional truth as any exhibit in a white-walled gallery.
Murugiah's work vividly demonstrates this thesis. His paintings don't depict reality; they explore feelings. Vibrant, surreal, and intentionally disorienting, they explore the intersection of identity, mental health, and cultural disorientation—things people keep hidden and rarely see reflected in their work. Murugiah conveys all of this in fluorescent, unsettling, and, oddly enough, cathartic detail.
«"Thematically, it's very much about deep, internal feelings," he says. "By presenting these feelings in such a vivid, surreal form, I'm juxtaposing two different techniques. A deep, very powerful emotional feeling, presented in a surreal form." This tension—between the heaviness of what's inside and the wildness of how it appears on the outside—isn't a stylistic quirk. It's the whole point. And it took years to honestly arrive at this.
Sharmelan Murugia
Quentin Blake Center for Illustration
The culture he almost abandoned
Murugia was born and raised in the UK, the son of Mrs. Rahini Murugia and Dr. Subramaniam Murugia, who emigrated from Sri Lanka in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Pop-punk soundtracks, Disney cartoons, Hollywood blockbusters, science fiction, and horror films—all of these entered his imagination and stayed with him. For a long time, this Western heritage comprised the entire story he told about himself. The other half—the Sri Lankan culture that lived in his parents' home, their decorations, religious artwork, and their worldview—remained distant.
«"I'm a man of two worlds," he says, "but I've spent most of my life trying to assimilate into Western culture. Like many of my peers, I realize I have an entire culture that belongs to my parents, and now I can explore it with pleasure. It wasn't there before, but now it is." This reflection—of one's heritage, one's belonging, the quiet feeling of existing between worlds, rather than entirely within one—forms the emotional core of the exhibition. These aren't abstract themes. They are the specific texture of life made visible.
Now, a clear shift is evident in his work. A recent concert poster for the psychedelic rock band Phish depicts his signature three-headed character, Maru, on a lotus flower—a direct reference to the ornamental religious artworks of Sri Lanka he saw in his parents' house as a child. At the base of the poster is Anish Kapoor's "Cloud Gate," a giant reflective sculpture in Chicago's Millennium Park, linking the image to the city where the band performed. Sri Lankan iconography, American public art, and British illustrative aesthetics all come together in a single image. Not a clash, but a synthesis. "I've truly been able to be myself," he says. "Now, when I get a concert poster, I'll definitely be representing myself.".
Phish concert poster by Murugiah.
Phish @ United Center — AP
Switch completely to alternative technologies
Commercial work continued to pour in. Concert posters for Elton John and the Foo Fighters. Alternative movie posters for films "Everything, Everywhere and at Once"« и «Robocop» — the latter is a colorful, iridescent profile inspired by the Polish tradition of film posters. The poster for "« Everything, everywhere and at once »" was based on a Milton Glaser image, reimagined with Michelle Yeoh and a doughnut, because, he says, that's exactly the feeling the film evoked. "I decided, no, I'm going to go completely alternative," he says. "It's not used as a primary marketing tool, so why not let my imagination run wild?" Many artists would use this commercial framework as a formula for repetition. Murugia, however, used it as permission to delve deeper into himself. Trained as an architect, he brought a structural ambition to a practice rooted in instinct—switching between acrylic painting, digital illustration, public sculpture, and found-object assemblages, which he happily explains stems from his ADHD.
What Blake taught him
His connection to Quentin Blake—after whom the Centre is named—helps us understand what he values most about this art form. Blake's illustrations for Roald Dahl gave generations of British children their first glimpse that drawing could be simultaneously funny, tender, and a little crazy. Murugia grew up with these books. "Quentin Blake had a way of capturing the quirkiness of life, the serenity of life, the joy of living in this casual, beautiful style that seems completely natural," he says. "I look at his drawings and see someone enjoying the view of the pier. It's just so beautiful and effortless. It's simply about life." Where Blake found ease, Murugia finds strangeness. But both work from the same belief—that illustration isn't decoration. It's a way to tell the truth about what it's like to live.
Rehearsal with the Orchestra, acrylic on 250 gsm paper, 33 x 23.4 inches, 2025 © MURUGIAH
© MURUGIAH
A universal feeling expressed in the singular.
The exhibition spans five years of work—painting, sculpture, commercial prints, and animation—and marks the first time Murugia has presented his work on such a large scale. He describes it as an exciting and somewhat nerve-wracking event. "This is the first time I'll be presenting my work to the public on such a large scale," he says. "So it will certainly evoke certain emotions." These emotions are, in many ways, the essence of the entire exhibition.
Disconnection from heritage, depression, rejection—things most people forget and never talk about. Murugia has dedicated ten years to the opposite: bringing these themes to light, depicting them in their most vivid colors, and asking strangers to recognize themselves in the process. "The themes are universal," he says, "so I hope they'll feel cathartic.".
That word—catharsis—really works here. It's not inspiration. It's not education. It's a special relief from seeing what you've long carried within you become visible, joyful, and utterly uncompromising. For an institution whose mission is to prove that illustration can accommodate the full weight of human experience, there's perhaps no more honest place to begin. Exhibition MURUGIAH: Ever Feel Like… runs at the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration in London from 5 June to 31 August 2026.
This article was originally published on Forbes.com.