Known for his filled canvases and sense of immediacy in the use of oil, oil stick and dirt, Oscar Murillo achieves another imposing work in Untitled (Yuca). Executed in 2011, this work is a classic interpretation of urgency, chaos and movement undeniably linked to the artist’s biographical experiences of displacement and community. Murillo has since exhibited work in many notable group and solo shows at major galleries around the world including Art Basel, the Rubell Family Collection, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and Serpentine Gallery, London. In his practice, the artist explores the themes of movement and change in location as well as physical activity in his work, which becomes a mixture of both the artist’s incisive inquiry into the geographies of space and a manifestation of his body in transit. Before the work is elevated into the realm of fine art, he likes to expose every element of it to the real world. Always made on the floor of his studio, 'a cradle of dust, dirt and pollution,' Murillo leaves his paintings lying for several months to wear them off and let them gather 'DNA information.' He comments, ‘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. I don’t work on a painting with the goal of finishing it or having a complete and finished painting at the end of a work process. The idea is to get through as much material as possible’ (Oscar Murillo, quoted in conversation with Legacy Russell, 'Oscar Murillo', Bomb Magazine, 1 January 2013, online). The result spans both high and low culture straddling both spheres of fine art and everyday material.
