Oscar Murillo: Poetics of Flight

Oscar Murillo

Poetics of Flight

Concurrent with Manifestation, the artist’s solo exhibition on view now at the gallery in London, David Zwirner is pleased to present recent works on paper by Oscar Murillo in an Online Viewing Room titled Poetics of Flight.

Murillo’s recent work makes pointed reference to air travel, with airplanes having become an important site of production for the artist. In his own words, flight is "not just a means of travel but a sacred ‘other’ space, the aeroplane seat itself becoming a unique ‘studio’ at a remove, a non-place which is both physically confined and freed from being in any real geographical location."

The drawings presented here bring together elements of Murillo’s expansive studio practice and peripatetic approach to art making. As in his large-scale canvases, through an associative working method, Murillo builds layers of imagery and

phrases as well as gestural markings in intuitively placed planes, resulting in dense, visually layered surfaces.

The artist begins by rapidly drawing the image directly onto a copper plate, using sharp tools to spontaneously achieve a singular motif or image. The image is then printed onto paper, and at times, modified during the transfer process. He continues to build upon these compositions over the course of his extensive travels using ink, graphite, or crayon. The drawings ultimately surface a sense of movement, transmission, and verticality—implicitly recalling how information makes an impression.

Murillo’s work is also on view in a solo presentation at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, in England (through June 23, 2019), and in a two-person exhibition with Tony Cokes at The Shed, New York (June 19 through August 25, 2019).

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Oscar Murillo

(untitled) poetics of flight, 2019

Intaglio print, graphite, ink, and crayon on paper

22 1/2 x 15 1/4 inches (57.2 x 38.7 cm)

Oscar Murillo

(untitled) poetics of flight, 2019

Intaglio print, graphite, ink, and crayon on paper

22 1/4 x 15 inches (56.5 x 38.1 cm)

"Constant transnational movement has become an integral facet of my practice. Flight becomes not just a means of travel but a sacred ‘other’ space, the aeroplane seat itself becoming a unique ‘studio’ at a remove, a non-place which is both physically confined and freed from being in any real geographical location."

—Oscar Murillo, in conversation with the gallery

Oscar Murillo drawing in flight. Photo by Alfonso Calixtro

“The drawings made on board planes, in hotels, and in any space of transition have a similar function: they feed a sickness, a relentless laboring.”

—Oscar Murillo, as quoted in Victor Wang’s “Horizons in Flight Mode,” from Oscar Murillo: the build-up of content and information (2018)

Oscar Murillo

(untitled) poetics of flight, 2019

Intaglio print, graphite, and ink on paper

22 3/8 x 15 1/4 inches (56.8 x 38.7 cm)

Oscar Murillo

(untitled) poetics of flight, 2019

Intaglio print, graphite, and ink on paper

22 1/4 x 15 1/8 inches (56.5 x 38.4 cm)

“The acceleration of flight puts the body in constant motion, at a loss of control and at an unnatural disconnection from the earth. This compression of time, space, risk, and movement translates to the motion and speed visible within Murillo’s paintings and drawings.”

—Victor Wang, in “Horizons in Flight Mode,” from Oscar Murillo: the build-up of content and information (2018)

“I had in mind this idea of collective mourning. So this idea of being here on this airplane, flying in abstraction, it is night and I can’t see anything, and we are taking this drastic right turn . . . It acted as a kind of liberation. It gave me an excuse for my work. It gave purpose to work I had already done.”

—Oscar Murillo, as quoted in Financial Times Magazine (March 2019)

Oscar Murillo

(untitled) poetics of flight, 2019

Intaglio print, graphite, ink, and crayon on paper

22 1/2 x 14 7/8 inches (57.2 x 37.8 cm)

Oscar Murillo

(untitled) poetics of flight, 2019

Intaglio print, graphite, ink, and crayon on paper

22 1/4 x 15 1/4 inches (56.5 x 38.7 cm)

Oscar Murillo

(untitled) poetics of flight, 2019

Intaglio print, graphite, ink, and crayon on paper

22 1/4 x 14 7/8 inches (56.5 x 37.8 cm)

Installation view, Oscar Murillo: Manifestation, David Zwirner, London, 2019

Oscar Murillo

(untitled) poetics of flight, 2019

Intaglio print, graphite, and ink on paper

22 1/2 x 14 7/8 inches (57.2 x 37.8 cm)

Oscar Murillo

(untitled) poetics of flight, 2019

Intaglio print, graphite, ink, and crayon on paper

22 1/4 x 15 1/4 inches (56.5 x 38.7 cm)

“[The drawings] root me in an expanded studio practice, where the singular seat of an aircraft, its pockets, the folding table, and the comfort of music instantaneously become the sacred studio space, where the activity of drawing and mark making takes place.”

—Oscar Murillo, as quoted in ”Horizons in Flight Mode” (2018)

Oscar Murillo

(untitled) poetics of flight, 2019

Intaglio print, graphite, and ink on paper

22 x 15 inches (55.9 x 38.1 cm)

Installation view, Oscar Murillo: Violent Amnesia, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, 2019. Photo by Jack Hems

“[The] aerial view has led Murillo to question some of the fundamental observations in painting and cartography, and misconceptions of scale and form. For him, the outlines of countries become directly related to the formulation of a type of mark.”

—Victor Wang, in “Horizons in Flight Mode” (2018)

Oscar Murillo

(untitled) poetics of flight, 2019

Intaglio print, graphite, and ink on paper

22 3/8 x 14 7/8 inches (56.8 x 37.8 cm)

Oscar Murillo

(untitled) poetics of flight, 2019

Intaglio print, graphite, ink, and crayon on paper

22 1/4 x 15 inches (56.5 x 38.1 cm)

Installation view, Oscar Murillo: Manifestation, David Zwirner, London, 2019

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