Oscar Murillo’s (b. 1986) work spans painting, collaborative projects, video, sound and installation. He explores ideas of collectivity and shared culture, informed by his cross-cultural personal ties between Colombia and the UK. He received the Turner Prize in 2019, after requesting with his fellow nominees that the jury award it to all four artists. Now, Murillo brings us The Flooded Garden, which forms part of UNIQLO Tate Play. The collaborative painting will encourage visitors to create waves and water across monumental canvases. The result will be a constantly evolving piece of art. We speak to him about how he created the exhibition, who inspires him and how his relationship with Colombia shapes his work.
A: You have long focused on the idea of “mark-making,” evident in your long-term project Frequencies, which affixed canvases to school desks and encouraged children to draw and write. What was it that initially sparked your interest in this idea and how did it evolve from there?
OM: Each canvas is attached to a desk in classrooms so that young people can engage freely. It started off as an idea around drawing, geography, social and political diversity and how canvases and desks could function as recording devices. It is less about the school itself, and more about school as a consistent, universal system. I wanted to focus on setting up an accurate experiment; schools are largely set up in the same way from one locality to the next, and that is how you get consistency. You also open up the possibility of a free-flowing stream of consciousness when working with children. It could be trivial and about anything. It is the porosity of the young person that allows for this freedom of thought to be best exercised.
A: You’re inviting visitors to collaborate by making wave-like strokes on the walls of canvas. Could you tell us more about the process of creating art designed to be continually evolving?
OM: The Flooded Garden was specifically conceived with the architecture of the Tate Modern in mind. The Turbine Hall has been called ‘the street’. I’m interested in both the conceptual and actual connotations this has: the permeation between the interior and exterior. I was also thinking about how museums, as cultural organisations in the UK, can be freely attended by the public. These nuanced realities brought me to this metaphorical idea of the flood. And that is how things began to take shape.
A: The Tate’s South Tank will display your installation Mesmerizing Beauty, which will fill the space with plastic garden chairs holding framed works. The chairs are reminiscent of informal community and family gatherings. How do you approach ideas of shared culture and community in your work, and do your own experiences shape this?
OM: The chairs are empty vessels. I think of them as synonymous with masses of people. The informality of how they are arranged is important. I like how they get stacked up and deactivated in certain contexts. The vessels are somewhat in turmoil with each other, so the installation is constantly at odds. In a recent interview I did with Catherine Wood, the term “singular collective” came up – that to me was interesting. The work of art you see on the chairs – the drawing and the work on paper – I see as a kind of empty but mesmerising thing. It’s not there. To me there is something very frustrating about this. I think it is also a reminder of family gatherings, how we co-existed without a care, as if the rest of society didn’t exist. But here, I’m flipping the idea, as in society still exists but we are in this collective myopia – blinded and transfixed.
A: Your work is inspired by Claude Monet’s paintings of his garden in Giverny, France. What initially drew you to the artist and how did this shape your work? Which other artists inspire you?
OM: I am inspired by Money’s experimentation with colour. I felt like I had an intuitive appreciation for his aesthetic and virtuosity. Now, I think I exist in a duality as an artist. It wasn’t until I discovered Monet’s cataracts and his inner turmoil and struggle that he came back into my thinking process. It was really the darkness caused by cataracts, the idea of a threat that is coming from the body, that I found a fascinating way to explore his work. I began to build this image of him in this beautiful garden in Giverny, making celebrated and very popular paintings. However, in reality, these were born out of immense struggle. I’ve never been able to shake that image. For me, this project brings that idea from my mind into the world. This popular painting is being exorcised by a transfixed audience that cannot really see because we are so socially blinded – and this is all our doing.
A. You first started working on Surge in 2019 and continued to develop the series during the global pandemic. How did the project evolve over time and did being in your hometown of La Paila in Colombia shape that?
OM: The pandemic, and the severe social collapse it caused, was a visceral experience for a micro-community to go through. It was profound. We are still dealing with that radical trauma. The micro-community context was important. My trip to the Yucatán, in the south of Mexico, was key to Surge. I started doing research into the Church as part of a historical project on Indigenous populations in the Americas. I became fixed on the Church in La Paila because of how it played such an important role for the community. Yet, of course, the Church is also a vilified entity. The Catholic religious project was very strong, particularly in Mexico, because of the resistance of the Indigenous population there. It’s still very palpable. When I was in the Yucatán, visiting these pre-Columbian, Mayan sites I was trying to understand why these small villages had these imposing cathedrals and churches. It dawned on me that it was precisely because they had to really make a point of eradicating Indigenous identity.
I was also enticed by a pigment called Mayan blue that was banned during the inquisition because of its Indigenous symbolism. My research culminated in a collaboration with the community in the small town of Tekantó and the takeover of a ruined cathedral where I left my paintings to collapse out in the open, in the elements. That really grounded my thinking around cataracts, around masses, doctrine and the concept of herd mentality. It was the first time that my ideas on these topics crystallised.
A: What’s next? Are you working on anything at the moment?
OM: To go back to the village and the mountains – and hide.
UNIQLO Tate Play’s Oscar Murillo The Flooded Garden will be at the Tate Modern 20 July – 26 August: Tate.org.uk
Image Credits:
- 01 Photo by Tim Bowditch and Reinis Lismanis, courtesy the artist.Copyright © Oscar Murillo.
- 04 Installation view: Oscar Murillo,Together in Our Spirits,Fundação Serralves, Porto, Portugal, 30 November2023–28May 2024.Photo by: Tim Bowditch, courtesy the artist. Copyright © OscarMurillo.
- 05 Installation view: Oscar Murillo,Masses,WIELS, Brussels,Belgium, 2 February 2024–26April 2024. Photo by: Reinis Lismanis,courtesy the artist. Copyright ©Oscar Murillo.
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