Comment/reaction

 

 

Transforming the space into a post-apocalyptic world, Oscar Murillo draped hundreds of weathered black leather that stretches across the gallery. Walking into the gallery, Curiosity runways across the mind, for you are dazed with the graphic composition of black, for the gallery is filled with it, and a hint of brown and grayish white. As you walk closer to the textiles, you will notice that each leather pieces have been ripped and cut, and then resewed, creating multitudes of new lines, almost resembling a map or maze. The leather appears to be weathered, damaged with dusty brown tire marks, and fading foot prints, such details guide the viewer to a disturbing narrative. A history is tied to the dislocate fabrics, but you wondered where they’re form. Whose footprints are on them? Why was it so mistreated?

Personally I associated the leather pieces with the idea of “homes that once were”. Maybe, these leather pieces once formed a tent that housed families, maybe refuges, but was then was crushed by military trucks. Families ran, scattering, leaving their footprints, fading footprints.

 

More interestingly, as you walk towards the back space, other clues and elements reveal themselves. Red and light bage color rocks are places in silver aluminum containers, as if an archeologist had placed them there. In one particular container a piece of leather black leather that has been treated with some sort of white dust is place under five rocks, four of them white. This leads me to believe that the maybe these rocks are part of the process of creating the look for the textiles. Maybe the whitish gray rocks are repeatedly rubbed across the surface of the leather?