COURTESY BIACI
Today, the Evening Standard posted a profile of Oscar Murillo centered around his upcoming show at David Zwirner in London, which opens tomorrow.
The piece covers Murillo’s upbringing in Colombia and immigration to the Hackney neighborhood of London, where he blossomed into an artist. Only three years ago Murillo was working as a cleaner; now he commands six-figure prices for his paintings.
Although Murillo’s new show–which leans heavily on his Colombian background for subject matter–contains installation and video, it is his collector-friendly abstract paintings for which he is best known. Of them, he said that “speaking from a commercial point of view, they are the engine and they drive the whole machine, because those are the things that people buy.”
The article glosses over the glut of criticism that has been lobbed at the wildly successful young artist over the past few years. At different points, his work has been referred to as derivative of Joe Bradley and Paul McCarthy, and last year critic Jerry Saltz said that the artist, despite demanding high prices, “is still making student work.”
“Binary Function” runs until November 20 at David Zwirner in London.