Oscar Murillo’s latest paintings are big, bold, and breathtaking. They would not look out-of-place in a survey exhibition featuring significant works by Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler, Al Leslie, Harry Jackson, and Grace Hartigan. Anyone who ever considered this 36-year-old artist a zombie abstractionist should take note. He has matured into someone who should be considered an honorary second-generation Abstract Expressionist.
It’s hard to tell what you see first when you look at Murillo’s canvases: the strong colors, the distinctive patterns, the textured marks. Then again, perhaps it’s their mural-like dimensions. These gestural abstractions are super-sized. You’re dwarfed when you stand next to them. Or, as the Colombian-born, London-based artist put it during a convo with Courtney J. Martin held at the Zwirner Gallery, “The scale allows you to get lost.”
The seven canvases on view in Murillo’s latest solo show, his first in New York comprised exclusively of paintings, are mixed media works. He executed them with oil paint, oil stick, graphite, and spray paint. Each of these substances seems to occupy a separate layer, layering being another defining feature of these riveting pictures. Through the interstices of the distinctive marks, you can see graphite scribbles on the surface of these canvases. It also looks as if Murillo sprayed paint beneath the creamy oil colors, which were applied next. Lastly, he created thick marks with oil sticks. All told, the combination of tiers conveys a rich sense of depth.