BETWEEN LAYERS AND COLLECTIVE TRACES: OSCAR MURILLO AT KURIMANZUTTO

Through March 28, the gallery kurimanzutto presents El pozo de agua by Oscar Murillo (b. 1986, La Paila, Colombia). In the words of curator Magalí Arriola, the exhibition “takes shape as a source of resources, experiences, and forms of knowledge that move between the intimate and the communal, the local and the global, the material and the immaterial.”

Murillo has developed a multifaceted and rigorous practice spanning painting, collaborative projects, video, sound, and installation. Across distinct bodies of work, he investigates shared culture and collective processes, demonstrating an ongoing commitment to material presence and to nuanced reflections on contemporary society.

Central to his practice is an emphasis on the social dimension of the artwork, situated at the threshold between performance and event. Each project reveals a sustained curiosity about global social and economic exchange, community formation, and collaboration.

Murillo’s paintings emerge from this same communal source. Spanning the past fifteen years, the works presented in his exhibition at kurimanzutto function as composite grounds—not only literally, but conceptually. Many were created from fragments of canvas that inhabited his studio for extended periods, or from canvases belonging to the Frequencies archive. Each piece is articulated through layered combinations of pigment, words, and gesture.

These elements accumulate in a series of marks, traces, and impressions, often produced by physically pressing one painting onto another. The result is a field of dualities: line and gesture, pigment and canvas, blue and red, abundance and scarcity, intuition and chance.

The works reflect the thread of participation that runs through Murillo’s life and practice. His paintings embody an ongoing negotiation with matter, inviting viewers into an active relationship with the work. At the same time, they mirror a broader negotiation with life itself: how one advances and retreats, stumbles and continues forward, along a fundamentally non-linear path.

Oscar Murillo: El pozo de agua remains on view through March 28 at kurimanzutto, Gob. Rafael Rebollar 94, Col. San Miguel Chapultepec 11850, Mexico City, Mexico.