Originally from Bradford, Murgatroyd Studied Fine art at Chelsea College of Arts in London. He has an obsession with history which has a great influence on his work; understanding the past allows him to make sense of the tangled web of influences, events and emotions that make up the existential human experience.
He implores an underlying fun witty evolution in his paintings from an immediacy of colour and figuration, weaving through to carefully constructed allegorical still life and surrealism. Objects and symbols that build our own histories, but recognisable by all in how we transfer our emotional memories onto objects, allowing them in some way to become otherworldly.
His creations compel us to view his life and ours with its raw untethered beauty, constructed in his own reality, but recognisable by all. He links together many references from social studies of human being placed in the reality of imagined environments.
His paintings act as a stage which brings together the myriad of characters and objects he has come into contact with; both imaged and lived. His work comprises of a wide range of topics, from his personal still life pieces to landscape paintings, which commonly feature captured images of the past. Structured compositions using this ethos are the framework of the works he creates.
Education
2013 - 2016 Chelsea Collage of Art, Fine Art
2011 - 2013 Leeds Collage of Art, Art and Design
Exhibitions
2023 Through The Looking Glass , London
2022 Collectorvist, Converse Exhbition, Peckham
2022 Memory of a Voyage, Solo Exhibition, Chen Projects, Taipei
2022 Showstopper, Saatchi Gallery, London
2022, Fir Gallery, Group shop, Beijing, China
2022, Touch Wood, Group Show, Eve Leibe Gallery, Berlin
2022 Talking All Day, Groupshow, Badr El Jundi, Spain
2022 Wish Lust, Group Shop, Kravitz Contempoary, London
2022 The Uncanny Valley, The Room London
2021 Sage Flowers, Solo Exhibition, Peckham
2021 Relation, Lychee One Gallery, Solo Exhibition
2021 History’s Shadow Marks The Beginning, Grove Collective, London
2021 WINDOWS, Online Solo Exhibition
2021 Cave Canem, Online Group Exhibition, Eve Leibe Gallery
2020 Art in Context, Group Exhibition, China
2020 FREE WALL SPACE, Group Exhibition
2020 All Mouth Gallery, Group Exhibition
2019 Interiors, Solo Exhibition, Haggerston
2017 FBA Futures, Group Exhibition, Mall Galleries
2016 Chelsea College of Art, Degree Show, Group Exhibition
2014 High Trees, Group Exhibition, Battersea
Awards
2017 FBA Futures, Painting Award
2017 Knights of the Round Table, Painting Award
Press / Publications
2023 Itsnicethat
2022 Young Artists In Conversation
2022 The Face - “The Uncanny Valley”
2021 Editoral Magazine
2021 Art Spiel - History’s Shadow Marks The Beginning
2021 Art Plugged - WINDOWS - Feature
2021 The Face - WINDOWS Feature
2020 The Face - British Art Special (Print Edition)
2020 Kickers Class of 50
2020 Its Nice That Feature
2020 The Face Magazine Feature
2020 English Grass Feature
2020 Dead Art Magazine
2019 Law Magazine x Adidas ‘Young Painters’
2017 Knights of the Round Table Painting Award