Oscar Murillo presents A Song to a Tearful Garden as part of the 36th Bienal de São Paulo Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice.

This work is a site-specific, collective painting where visitors to the biennial will encounter structures with a wall of artist canvas and art materials, allowing the public to participate in a series of large-scale paintings. The public's marks will create an index of painted layers providing a place of reflection against a backdrop of energy from the surrounding city. ⁠
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Ahead of the installation, Murillo invited friends, family and members of the public to form the painting’s base layer in a series of drawing sessions held around the world. Canvas has travelled to São Paulo from across the Atlantic, throughout Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean in a celebration of collective spirit anchored by the exercise of mark-making, a process Murillo refers to as social mapping.⁠
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These ideas of collective energy are mirrored in Murillo's Mesmerizing Beauty installation, presented inside the pavilion. Works on cardboard are propped up by vertical lengths of wood and secured to disposable plastic chairs, the installation manifests a sense of dissonance echoing the poetic aspirations of the⁠public participation unfolding outside. ⁠
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A video work comprising footage from the social mapping sessions that took place around the world will be⁠shown alongside the installation too.⁠

+ about Oscar Murillo

+ about the biennial