Oscar MURILLO

Born 1986 in La Paila, Colombia
Based in London, UK

As a child, Oscar Murillo moved to London along with his parents, and went on to study painting there. He is known for his graffiti-informed style, but thematically his primary concern is with the relationship between production and labor, and with the development of a work over the course of time more than with its completed form. While in his studio, dyeing, cutting, and stitching are continuously carried out to create large-scale works, he also piles fabric still in the midst of these processes in the exhibition spaces, pointing to the fuzzy boundary between artistic creation and manual labor. The surfaces’ patina and degradation over time indicate a positive acceptance of the works’ release from the consciousness and control of their creator and transferral to the territory of the viewer. Murillo works in diverse modes including installations incorporating sculpture and video, but his works consistently emphasize a tactility that is simultaneously an extension of the visual in art and, for Murillo, an expression of the reality of physical labor.