Madness Around Oscar Murillo: Why This Painter-Turned-Global-Nomad Is Big Money Now
28.01.2026 - 06:03:34
You keep seeing the name Oscar Murillo pop up in blue-chip galleries, museum shows, and auction headlines – but the work looks like someone attacked a canvas with coffee, dust, and airline tags. Genius or random chaos?
If you care about Art Hype, Big Money, and work that actually says something about how you live right now – from global travel to burnout jobs – you need Murillo on your radar. This isn’t just pretty living-room art. It’s dirty, loud, and very much about your world.
Born in Colombia, raised in London, and now collected worldwide, Murillo went from working-class kid to a major player at David Zwirner and the world’s top museums. His canvases are messy, political, and weirdly Instagrammable – and the market is paying attention.
The Internet is Obsessed: Oscar Murillo on TikTok & Co.
Murillo’s work hits that perfect mix of gritty and aesthetic. Huge canvases, scribbled words, stitched-together fabrics, stains, dust, food traces, airline stickers – like a travel diary exploded in a factory.
On social, people love filming his giant paintings and immersive installs: slow pans across cracked surfaces, close-ups of handwritten words, and walk-throughs of rooms full of chairs, screens, or hanging fabrics. It’s moody, cinematic, and very screenshot-friendly.
Critics talk about migration, labour, global capitalism. TikTok just says: this looks wild – and expensive.
Want to see the art in action? Check out the hype here:
Masterpieces & Scandals: What you need to know
Murillo doesn’t just make one type of painting. His world is a whole ecosystem: canvases, performances, videos, and factory-style setups where other people help produce the work. Here are some key projects and works you should know.
- Untitled canvas works (the big, dirty abstractions)
These are the pieces you see most on Insta: huge, heavy canvases layered with black oil stick, bright colour blocks, scribbles, stitched fabric, and physical dirt. They look like protest banners crossed with warehouse walls. Collectors love them because they scream “serious contemporary art” and look powerful in a big space. Many of Murillo’s highest auction results come from this family of works. - “Frequencies” (the kids’ desks worldwide project)
Murillo sent canvases to schools in multiple countries and asked students to draw, write, and doodle on them over time. The results – chaotic, layered, emotional surfaces – became an ongoing artwork called “Frequencies”. It’s part social experiment, part global diary of youth. When shown in museums, the installation feels like stepping into a collective teenage notebook, and clips of it spread fast on social because people love spotting kids’ messages from different countries. - Factory vibes & collaborative production
Murillo has repeatedly turned galleries or studios into workshop-style spaces where assistants help produce pieces, referencing low-wage labour and global production chains. Think stacks of canvases, repeated motifs, industrial materials. Some see it as a smart critique of how art itself is produced like a luxury product; others argue it’s too close to the system it critiques. That tension fuels both hype and controversy.
No burning-museum-level scandal attached to his name, but debates around market hype, assistants, and art-factory production are very much part of the Murillo conversation. Which, of course, keeps him in the news.
The Price Tag: What is the art worth?
Here’s what you really want to know: is this just art-world noise, or are we talking serious value?
Based on recent auction reports from major houses like Christie’s and Sotheby’s, Murillo’s large-scale works have already sold for top dollar on the secondary market. His record prices sit firmly in the high-value tier for contemporary painters of his generation, with significant six-figure results and strong demand when the right works appear.
Translation: this is not entry-level collecting. Murillo is widely treated as a blue-chip or near-blue-chip artist, represented by David Zwirner, one of the most powerful galleries on the planet. His early breakout came when he was still very young, with museums, biennials, and collectors jumping in fast.
A quick sketch of his trajectory:
- Born in Colombia, moved to the UK young, worked his way through art school while holding down jobs. That biography – immigrant hustle, factory and service work – feeds directly into the art.
- He rose quickly in the international scene, with major gallery backing, inclusion in important museum shows, and participation in big-name biennials and institutional projects.
- He has won or been shortlisted for high-profile art prizes, and his work is now in major public collections. That institutional support is a big reason the market treats him as a long-term player, not just a viral moment.
The vibe from market watchers and collectors: Murillo is already established; the question now is which works will define his legacy and hold the strongest value over time – the heavy canvases, the big installations, or the social projects like “Frequencies”.
See it Live: Exhibitions & Dates
Murillo’s schedule moves fast: museums, galleries, biennials, and travelling projects. Currently, detailed public info on specific upcoming exhibition dates is limited. No current dates available that are fully confirmed and public at the time of writing.
However, his work frequently appears in group shows and institutional projects, and solo presentations can be announced on short notice. To track what’s actually on near you, do this:
- Check his main gallery page: Oscar Murillo at David Zwirner – they list current and past exhibitions, plus news on new shows.
- Look at the official artist website here: Official Oscar Murillo site – for projects, institutional collaborations, and background on major works.
- Search your local big museums’ sites for his name; his work is regularly included in group exhibitions about globalisation, migration, and contemporary painting.
If you are planning a trip to London, New York, or another global art city, it is absolutely worth checking those links before you go. Catching one of his large installations or a room full of canvases hits very differently than just scrolling images on your phone.
The Verdict: Hype or Legit?
So, where does Oscar Murillo land on the spectrum from “child could do this” to “future textbook star”?
On one side, his paintings are messy, raw, sometimes aggressively unresolved. If you like crisp minimalism, this is not your guy. And the whole art-factory vibe – assistants, big gallery, high prices – triggers instant scepticism for some viewers.
On the other side, the concept behind the work is sharp: a kid from a migrant, working-class background using the tools of high art to talk about global labour, travel, alienation, and hustle culture. The stains, dust, stitched fragments, and scribbled words aren’t random. They’re evidence – of movement, work, time, and people.
For the TikTok generation, Murillo hits a nerve. He’s speaking to a world where you might have family in multiple countries, where low-paid work and luxury brands live side by side on the same feed, and where travel, borders, and passports shape your identity. That’s why institutions keep inviting him, and why collectors keep spending.
If you are into:
- Raw visuals that look great on camera but still feel intense in person,
- Art with politics baked in, not just decorative vibes,
- And following artists who already have institutional backing and serious market interest,
then Oscar Murillo is absolutely on your Must-See and Must-Follow list.
Is it hype? Yes – but it is the kind of hype that usually sticks. If you get the chance to walk into a room full of his work, take it. You are not just looking at paint; you are stepping into the messy, globalised reality you already live in – only louder.
