Oscar Murillo

Colombian-British(1986)

Works

Artist Spotlight

Oscar Murillo Turns the World Into Paint

When Oscar Murillo represented Colombia at the 2019 Venice Biennale, he arrived not with a polished solo statement but with a sprawling, generous idea: a years long participatory project called Frequencies, in which blank canvases had been installed in classrooms across dozens of countries, allowing schoolchildren to mark, stain, draw, and leave traces on the fabric simply by living near it. The resulting works, dense with the accumulated energy of young lives, filled the Colombian Pavilion with something rare in contemporary art: genuine communal tenderness. It was the kind of gesture that… Continue reading

Mixed Media Abstract Contemporary Male Artist Earth Tones Colombian Artist Gestural Contemporary Artist Abstract Expressionism Gestural Abstraction Experimental Contemporary Art

Number 11

“The individual canvases are very much the DNA; they record that movement, the process of making.” - Oscar Murillo, 2013

tape, oilstick, dirt on canvas

Oscar Murillo — “Paintings happen in the studio where I have my own kind of system, although there can be physical residue of performance in them. I like to cut up the canvas in different sections, work on them individually, fold them and just leave them around for months [...] It’s not about leaving traces, it’s about letting things mature on their own like aging cheese or letting a stew cook, they get more flavorful. That’s kind of how these paintings are made.” - Oscar Murillo, 2013

“Paintings happen in the studio where I have my own kind of system, although there can be physical residue of performance in them. I like to cut up the canvas in different sections, work on them individually, fold them and just leave them around for months [...] It’s not about leaving traces, it’s about letting things mature on their own like aging cheese or letting a stew cook, they get more flavorful. That’s kind of how these paintings are made.” - Oscar Murillo, 2013

Oscar Murillo — “My studio is a cradle of dust and dirt, of pollution. I don’t tidy up at the end of each production process. It’s all very much on purpose; it’s continuous process, a machine of which I’m the catalyst.” OSCAR MURILLO

Oscar Murillo — Touch me with your greasy hands

Oscar Murillo — Untitled (Synthetic Trash Paintings)

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Artists in conversation