Oscar Murillo at Isabella Bortolozzi

Artist: Oscar Murillo

Exhibition title: Land with lost olive trees

Venue: Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin, Germany

Date: April 30 – June 25, 2016

Photography: Henry Trumble, all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi Berlin and David Zwirner New York/London

The tense state of air travel, The distressing experience of a family losing a loved one—the deceased body loaded in the cargo of this boeing aircraft. Geographical awareness, Google maps, Flightmapper and Plane Finder, all tools meant for geographical awareness, which help to illustrate the reality of a region in discontent.

FlightMapper illustrates that upon take-off flight J2 22 should cruise northeastwards crossing Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Turkey, Iran and finally arriving in Baku on an uphill diagonal. Nevertheless as cruising altitude was achieved the aircraft sped further and further over the Mediterranean sea, passing the northearstern tip of Cyprus, before reaching the middle of Turkey. whilst cruising above the town of Tepekoy in the Mersin province, where a right turn directed the aircraft northeast, through northern Turkey and towards Azerbaijan.

Awareness of a deceased body in the cargo compartment, and the rightward turn of this midnight flight opened up an imaginary abstract landscape. It is this rightward turn that shed light on my understanding of dead matter, the void and dark abstract space. My gaze fixed out of the plane window towards mapped neighbouring territories affirmed with certainty that this was perhaps the closest I would come to and some kind of annihilated world.

Layers of ivory black oil paint are applied and then burnished into what feels and is experienced as heavy compressed material, time compressed and fossilized to no singular issue, information gathered through investigations with a radical negativity: absorption of the detritus of a failed period. There is nothing left, all has collapsed. Via Google maps these thoughts materialise whilst simultaneously tracking the flight.