Year: 2020-2022
Medium: oil, oil stick, graphite and spray paint on canvas and linen
Dimensions: 115.6 x 120.7 cm/ 45 1/2 x 46 1/2 inches
Acquired from David Zwirner, 2022
Throughout his career as an artist, Murillo has travelled around the world, producing works based on his sustained and evolving investigation of notions of community. However, since March 2020, under the circumstances of the corona virus pandemic, he has been creating artworks in his hometown in Colombia while also being involved in humanitarian activities. This work is from Murillo’s Manifestation series, painted in 2021 around the same period in which he had witnessed the mass protests in Colombia and the violence conducted by state authority in order to contain them. Its ground composed of a collage of works that encompass different locations, culture, and times is saturated with pigment, upon which the artist transfers the gestures and traces of his body through a technique he refers to as “downloading energy.” He then applies further layers onto the work’s surface using richly colored oil bars to add dense and vibrant passages of color in thick strokes, resulting a dynamic yet compellingly complex painting. It is both a “witness to the tribulations brought about by the pandemic” and a manifesto declaring resistance to threats towards human dignity.
