Joi Murugavell
Family Reunion

When I moved from Australia to France in 2023, I came across a box of drawings I’d made in 2013 on old business cards. Feeling a bit stuck and out of place in my new studio, I thought revisiting them might bring some kind of familiar comfort. Instead, the experience of making those drawings reminded me of my first visit to a gynaecologist—where a nurse held a torch at a very precise angle while the doctor worked, and I nervously asked about something I thought wasn’t quite right. The doctor replied, “You’re supposed to have that,” while the nurse kept whacking her malfunctioning torch, trying to keep the light steady.

A year later, I’m in a different studio in Saverne, France. I thought I’d be making small drawings again for a show in Toronto, but that never happened. Friends came to stay—some of them slept in the studio. I had a new disco light. We talked, we laughed, we wondered how ten years had passed since we first met. And instead of drawings, I started making large paintings—under the glow of that disco light, and something else that felt like memory or time catching up.

I kept asking myself what these paintings were about. Someone said, “It feels like an awakening of sorts.” And I thought, yes—of course. It’s a constant thing, isn’t it? Falling asleep and waking up again. (Whacks torch.)

I had been looking forward to meeting my cousins. Two of them run the gallery where I’m now showing, and the other I’ve had my whole life. Last year, while questioning how I was approaching the “business of art,” I realised something felt misaligned. I thought back to a time when things felt simpler—when what I made and how I felt were more in sync. That’s when two people I’d never met, but now call cousins, came to mind. Ellen and Wendy have run Dimensions Framing & Gallery for 25 years. When I asked them for a photo, Wendy sent a drawing of stick figures, and Ellen told me she trusts her morning brain—the part that knows when she’s being truthful, before her ego steps in. I asked if I could have a show. They said yes. Something clicked back into place.

As for my other cousin—the one I’ve had forever, Jon Jon—he walks around with a small flag he made as a child, flying just above his head. Sometimes he carries it quietly, sometimes with pride, but he always carries it. Over the years, he’s kept repairing its worn edges. I often think more people should fly their slightly tattered flags like that—with care, and without apology.