Oscar Murillo Portrait, 2023 courtesy the artist © Oscar Murillo. Photography by Tim Bowditch
Oscar Murillo’s works are confusing; they seem to slip through your fingers – as if they were not solid, but, as the title suggests, in a state of osmosis. And it seems that is exactly the point: to circumvent a single statement, to reject something static, beholden only to itself. Instead, what the Colombian artist captures is (e)motion – a movement that, although still, seems to continue.
Not only do the rich colours and thick oil-pen traces on canvas carry a rhythm without direction, but the artist’s practice of constant travel appears embedded in the translation between hand and work. “(…) ideas which circumvent and flee into pixels of nothingness” describes this motion perfectly – something that inevitably returns to your own body: you, standing there, looking. Travelled to nowhere, and yet went somewhere.
The exhibition Collective Osmosis, which opened last Friday at DAS MINSK, unfolds within a site already marked by exchange and an exhibition programme that will unfold in participation and change. (A brief note on coincidences: in 1977, the terrace restaurant “Minsk” was completed with the participation of artists from Minsk. Conversely, the city of Minsk had already opened the restaurant “Potsdam” in 1971.)
Walking up the spiral staircase, reminiscent of this past, one encounters Murillo’s works in conjunction with Claude Monet. The French painter, who died one hundred years ago, at first feels a bit outdated, but only at first. Then paintings such as Water Lilies, 1914–1917, or Grainstacks, 1890, turn into an interesting departure point – not only for this exhibition but for Murillo’s practice more broadly. Also heavy on colour, as in physical pigment on canvas, Monet attempted to paint nature as he perceived it, not as it was. He painted change, the passing of time—not as a social or economic construct, but as the world moving around him.
“Monet and his paintings are a vessel through which I understand paradox. On the one hand, Monet’s works are a representation of universally celebrated aesthetics – gesture, scale, color, harmony, and joy – but on the other, Monet’s experience as a human being, and the cataracts he suffered from, allow me to see cosmic anguish and darkness through metaphor. The heavily textured and layered paintings that I work on are a direct result of these ideas, ideas which circumvent and flee into pixels of nothingness.” -Oscar Murillo.
Osmosis, as an ongoing process, also manifests in Murillo’s approach to community building across geographies. Through “Social Mapping,” he invites participation into the fabric of his practice. For the artist, art is a form of communication, with the act of mark-making constituting an expression of freedom both for himself and for participants in his collective actions. In one of the siloed rooms, simple metal shelves hold roughly cut canvases, piled in batches according to geographic references and their respective schools. An element recurring in Murillo’s work – schoolchildren are invited to participate in this collective drawing and mark-making. Here, one is allowed to move through and touch these fragments, these patches of shared gesture.
“His work explores new possibilities for community building. Collective Osmosis will become a lived experiment that fosters exchange and challenges inequality. Oscar Murillo’s decision to choose Claude Monet as an accomplice – an artist who translates light and landscape into works admired worldwide for their luminous colors – is an astute idea. In doing so, he expands his own frame of reference and moves closer to the idea of a universal human community.” -Anna Schneider.
If Monet’s depictions of water lilies and landscapes speak to a philosophical reckoning between human and nature, Murillo’s works seem like an attempt to feel through the complexity of human relationships with one another, questioning the arbitrary borders, classifications, and divisions, and moving towards shifting ideas of self within an ever-changing and growing web of a community in practice.
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Oscar Murillo: Collective Osmosis
At DAS MINSK, Potsdam until 9th August 2026
Curated by Anna Schneider
Oscar Murillo (b. 1986, La Paila, Colombia) has developed a multifaceted and ambitious practice that spans painting, collaborative projects, video, sound, and installation. His work probes ideas of collectivity and shared culture, demonstrating a commitment to the power of material presence alongside critical perspectives on contemporary society.