OSCAR MURILLO

Early Years

Oscar Murillo was born in La Paila in western Colombia in 1986. His parents both worked in factories and he describes his upbringing as “idyllic”. When his father lost his job during the mid-1990s, the family moved to Hackney in London, which Murillo said was “a big upheaval”. Encouraged by his parents, he became interested in art, which helped him to adjust to his new surroundings. He gained his BFA from the University of Westminster in 2007 and his MFA from the Royal College of Art in 2012, working as a teaching assistant and then as a cleaner in order to fund his studies. His early work was characterised by marks on canvas, often as part of an installation.

Oscar Murillo: Artworks

Covering displacement, identity and post-colonial and socioeconomic disparities, Oscar Murillo’s artworks combine graffitiesque text, abstract expressionism and found objects. Although Murillo broke on to the art scene with expressionistic oil paintings, his modern practice has expanded to include sculpture, installation, drawing and video. Murillo’s Colombian heritage is an ongoing influence on his work.

• meet me! Mr Superman (2015–2015) is a celebrated film shot in Murillo’s home town of La Paila on New Year’s Day, featuring people dancing, drinking and interacting. Using a mixture of wide angles, documentary style and detailed shots, Murillo showcases his own disparate identity (returning from London to Colombia). The film also mixed original audio with a specially commissioned score.
• For his 2024 show in Rome, Marks and Whispers, the focus was on Murillo’s use of red in his work during the previous decade, from a film called Wrapped (2024) via works on paper and abstract paintings, created using materials including spray paint, oil stick, graphite and oil, then scraping the linen or canvas to produce richly textured, layered surfaces.
• In 2024, Murillo created the participatory installation The Flooded Garden in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern in London. The first layer of the work saw words and sentences encapsulating individual lives and concerns painted on to a massive canvas wall. Then, inspired by Claude Monet’s Water Lilies series, Murillo invited visitors to paint waves and water on top—the public’s gestural brushstrokes created a collaborative art piece.
• Collective Osmosis, Murillo’s 2026 exhibition in Potsdam, grew from the concept of osmosis being a metaphor for the way different social contexts and spaces interact. His own pieces were displayed alongside works by Monet—notably Murillo’s tryptich surge (social cataracts) (2025) next to works completed by Monet when he was suffering from physical cataracts. The idea of collaboration spread beyond the gallery: a work on the outside terrace invited visitor participation, while a “social mapping” project saw large canvases sent to communities throughout Germany and then returned to the museum with their own unique set of marks and gestures.

Oscar Murillo: Select Exhibitions

Select Solo Exhibitions

• Oscar Murillo: Collective Osmosis, Das Minsk Kunsthaus and Museum Barberini, Potsdam (2026)
• Oscar Murillo: Unfinished thinking: Paintings and Social Maps, David Zwirner, Paris (2026)
• Oscar Murillo: Anterior Chambers, Taka Ishii Gallery, Kyoto (2025)
• Oscar Murillo: A Telegram to my dear Suki, Gagosian, Athens (2025)
• Oscar Murillo: The flooded garden, Tate Modern Turbine Hall, London (2024)
• Oscar Murillo: catarata social, Iglesia de San Antón, Madrid (2023)
• Oscar Murillo, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2021)
• Oscar Murillo: Frequencies, Yorkshire Sculpture Park (2019)
• Oscar Murillo: Social Altitude, Aspen Art Museum (2019)
• Oscar Murillo: meet me! Mr. Superman, Nouveau Musée National de Monaco (2016)
• Oscar Murillo: A Mercantile Novel, David Zwirner, New York City (2014)
• Oscar Murillo: Dinner at the members club? Yes! i’ll have a black americano first pls, Carlos/Ishikawa, London (2013)
• Oscar Murillo: Breed like flies and die as fast, Serpentine Gallery, London (2012)

Select Group Exhibitions

• Sharjah Biennial 17: What remains, sits restive (2027)
• Unruly Waters, Rubaiya Qatar, Doha (2026)
• When I’m in My Painting, Kistefos Museum, Jevnaker (2026)
• 36th Bienal de São Paulo (2025)
• New New Babylon: Visions for Another Tomorrow, Kunstmuseum Den Haag, The Hague (2025)
• David Zwirner: 30 Years, David Zwirner, Los Angeles (2024)
• Black Abstraction: From Then ’til Now, Green Family Art Foundation, Dallas (2022)
• Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts (2020)
• Fragile State, PinchukArtCentre, Kyiv (2017)
• 56th Venice Biennale: All the World’s Futures, Giardini and Arsenale, Venice (2015)
• Beware Wet Paint, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (and touring) (2014)
• Folk Devil, David Zwirner, New York City (2013)
• Jessica Dickinson, Oscar Murillo, Cammie Staros and Phil Wagner, Mihai Nicodim Gallery, Los Angeles (2011)
• A Gothic Story, Shoreditch Town Hall, London (2008)

Further Reading

• Oscar Murillo’s Instagram
• 2026 interview with Berlin Artlink
• 2023 interview from the Guardian
• Artist profile page at David Zwirner

Oscar Murillo FAQs

Ocula