Oscar Murillo - Frequences

Frequencies is an ongoing project by young British-Colombian artist Oscar Murillo. After debuting his project with a large-scale installation of canvases as part of the 56th Venice Biennale: All the World’s Futures in 2015, Project ArtBeat became interested in his work and offered artist cooperation.

Oscar Murillo’s large-scale paintings imply action, performance, and chaos, but are in fact methodically composed of rough-hewn, stitched canvases that often incorporate fragments of text as well as studio debris such as dirt and dust. His paintings, video works, and performances are tied to a notion of community, stemming from the artist’s cross-cultural ties to London, where he currently lives and works, and Colombia, where he was born in 1986.

For Frequencies, created in collaboration with members of his family and political scientist Clara Dublanc, Murillo began sending canvases to schools across the globe where they are temporarily affixed to classroom desks to register young students’ creative and critical thought processes. The students, aged ten to sixteen, are encouraged to create any kind of mark making—drawing, writing, doodling. The project aims to offer cross-cultural and social insights into youth communities around the world.

Frequencies Project aims to generate a collaboration between about 100 schools in 50 different countries, including Georgia. Coordinator Clara Dublanc alongside with the project founders’ parents visited Georgia in 2015, On September 29. To incorporate different visions of Georgian children from different regions, two schools were selected: private school “Jejili” in Tbilisi and N8 public school of Gori, whose pupils had very close contact with the 2008 August war.

The works were sent to the artist in March. Murillo in collaboration with Georgian students will create interesting artworks of contemporary art.