Manifestation
- Artist: Oscar Murillo
- Date: 2019–20
- Medium: Oil paint, oil stick and graphite on linen and velvet
- Dimensions: support: 2500 × 3000 × 50 mm
- Museum: Tate Britain
- Collection record: Tate Britain website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This is “Manifestation” by Oscar Murillo, a work born in his hometown studio of La Paila during the 2020 lockdown. Murillo layers oil paint and oil stick on a composite panel that’s stitched together from canvas, velvet and linen – all glued to one another with cotton thread, so that the whole surface behaves as a single fabric. The artist paints flat on his floor, working in sections over an extended period; the dust and dirt that settled between those layers give each fragment a patina of studio energy.
The result is a densely worked composition that feels like a frenetic storm. In it the paint floods the surface with pigment, while graphite strokes cut through the swirls, hinting at turmoil and unrest. Murillo has linked this technique to his earlier “Catalyst” series, where each piece is built from its own DNA before becoming part of a larger whole.
“Manifestation” sits in that lineage – a record of his studio’s rhythm during lockdown and a visual echo of the pandemic’s impact on Colombia. The rawness of paint here recalls Jannis Kounellis and Arte Povera, treating pigment as material rather than illusion.
See it in person
Manifestation is in the collection of Tate Britain on Millbank, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
