BIO
Humour and play are central to the practice of Joi Murugavell, a sensibility shaped early in life by her father, who framed humour as a way of navigating life’s contradictions. Beneath this openness lies a sustained inquiry into perception, identity, and the desire to understand experience beyond inherited cultural frameworks. In Murugavell’s work, painting becomes a method of processing and reorganising accumulated emotional and lived experience.
Prior to focusing fully on her practice, Murugavell worked for twelve years as a graphic designer, maintaining a parallel daily drawing practice that she describes as essential rather than supplementary. This discipline established a foundation for an intuitive yet structured approach to image-making.
Her paintings are characterised by immediacy and spontaneity, where figurative elements emerge as fragments of lived experience. These compositions move between abstraction and figuration, holding humour, tension, and emotional intensity in simultaneous balance. The works operate within a deliberately unstable register, where images remain open, unresolved, and in flux.
Murugavell has exhibited internationally across Asia, Europe, and the United States, including ARCO Madrid, Art021 Shanghai, Korea International Art Fair (KIAF), Art Taipei, Lille Art Up, and The Hyundai Seoul Alt.1 Museum, alongside institutional programming with the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia’s Young Ambassadors Club.
Her practice is informed by lived experience across Malaysia, New Zealand, Australia, and France, where she is currently based. These shifting cultural contexts underpin an ongoing engagement with questions of belonging, identity, and perception.
“Existence was not only absurd, it was plain hard work. Think of how many times you put on your underwear in a lifetime. It was appalling, it was disgusting, it was stupid.” — Charles Bukowski
CV
Born in Pulau Pinang, Malaysia
Resides and works in Alsace, France
EDUCATION
MASTERS IN ART AND DESIGN, WITH HONOURS
Thesis: Visual Interface Design.
Myth of the Cave: Art and the dissection of meaning
Auckland University of Technology
BACHELOR OF BUSINESS COMMUNICATION Majoring in Advertising
Auckland Institute of Technology
BACHELOR OF VISUAL COMMUNICATION AND DESIGN
Auckland Institute of Technology
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2025, Family Reunion, Dimensions Gallery, Toronto, Canada
2025, The Upside Down Bum, Alan Avery Art Company, Atlanta, USA
2024, Itching & Scratching, Praxis Art Space, Adelaide, Australia
2023, Spiders & Stars, El Nucleo Residency, Segovia, Spain
2023, Many Ways Home, Nonage Gallery, Singapore
2024, Nana Banana, Gallery Banditrazos x Insa1010 Gallery, Seoul, Korea
2022, Finding Mikey, Sarah Birtles Art, Sydney, Australia
2022, Solo Presentation, Art Solo, Fun Year Gallery, Taiwan
2018, Bananas Down Under, abc Gallery, Seoul, Korea
2018, Wood & Giggles, Something For Jess, Sydney, Australia
2016, Follow The Arrow, The Makers, Sydney, Australia
2014, Mr Tingles, Zetalnd Tree House Gallery, Sydney, Australia
2012, My 10 Crushes, Angela Robarts Bird Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024, Two Residencies, a Teapot and a Nudist Beach, Frock Gallery, Leper, Belgium
2024, Fundacion El Nucleo 5th Anniversary Show, Segovia, Spain
2024, Youth, Praxis Art Space, Adelaide, Australia
2023, Viva Arte, The Hyundai Museum Alt.1, Seoul, Korea
2023, Here’s What I Was Thinking, Sibyl Gallery, New Orleans, USA
2022, Laputa Gallery, Shanghai, China
2022, Summer Show, Frock Gallery, Leper, Belgium
2020, City Recital Hall, Sydney, Australia
2018, Ask Me Anything, Museum of Contemporary Art Young Ambassadors Club, Sydney, Australia
2019, The Edge of Abstraction, Black Gate Gallery, Sydney, Australia
2017, Centro Cultural Del Bosque (Ccb), Mexico
2017, Twenty/20 Art, Vandal Gallery, Sydney, Australia
2017, Group Show, O Gallery, Monterrey, Mexico
ART FAIRS
2026, Art Taichung, represented by Fun Year Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan
2025, Atlanta Art Fair, represented by Alan Avery Art Company, Atlanta, USA
2025, Art Taipei, represented by Fun Year Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan
2025, Lille Art, represented by Mees-Van De Wiele Galerie, Lille, France
2025, One Art Taipei, represented by Fun Year Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan
2025, Artparment Fair, represented by Banditrazos Gallery, Paju, Korea
2024, ARCO Madrid, represented by Galeria Ponce+Robles, Madrid, Spain
2024, Atlanta Art Fair, represented by Alan Avery Art Company, Atlanta, USA
2024, Art The Hague, represented by Mees-Van De Wiele Galerie, Den Haag, Netherlands
2024, Art Tainan, represented by Fun Year Gallery, Tainan, Taiwan
2023, ARCO Madrid, represented by Galeria Ponce+Robles, Madrid, Spain
2023, KIAF Seoul, represented by Banditrazos Gallery, Seoul, Korea
2023, AAF Brussels Art. Fair, represented by Frock Gallery, Brussels, Belgium
2022, Art Taipei, represented by Fun Year Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan
2022, Marie Claire Art Fair Seoul, represented by Banditrazos Gallery, Seoul, Korea
2022, KIAF Seoul, represented by Banditrazos Gallery, Seoul, South Korea
2022, Art Solo Taipei, represented by Fun Year Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan
2022, Bama Busan, Banditrazos Gallery, Busan, South Korea
2021, Art Taichung, represented by Fun Year Gallery, Taichung, Taiwan
2021, Incheon Art Show, represented by Banditrazos Gallery, Seoul, Korea
2021, Art021 Shanghai, represented by Funia Gallery, Shanghai, China
2021, Art Daegu, represented by Banditrazos Gallery, Daegu, Korea
2021, KIAF Seoul, represented by Banditrazos Gallery, Seoul, Korea
2019, Amsterdam International Art Fair, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2014, Melbourne Art Fair, Melbourne, Australia
PUBLIC & PRIVATE COLLECTIONS
Fundación María Cristina Masaveu Peterson Collection, Madrid, Spain
Private collections in Australia, America, Belgium, Canada, China, France, Germany, Spain, Korea, Taiwan
RESIDENCIES
2026, Sestriere Santa Croce Residency, Venice, Italy
2023, El Nucleo Residency, Segovia, Spain