The descriptive powers of photography are so great that many observers have assumed photography's role in the world is to describe. Few artists have shown the medium as capacious enough to encompass experiments that forsake description in favor of more subjective, associative meanings. Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, Salvador Dali and Max Ernst have all influenced Agusto Murrillo. They all converted dreams and nightmares into a surreal plane for viewing. So Murrillo’s philosophy becomes straightforward. He gathers ideas from what he sees around him. He looks at an object or subject and then creates a complex image in his mind, later translating that image into terms that make it possible to photograph. Murrillo tries to create a three-dimensional photograph on a two dimensional plane. He achieves this by connecting the negative space around the subject or object using projections, color schemes, hair and/or fabric that bring the image forward to the viewer or invite the viewer into the photograph. Murrillo first worked with Lois Greenfield as her assistant and later as her fine art printer. Here Murrillo’s eyes were opened into seeing the capture of a dancers transformation of grace and beauty into strength and power and vise versa. Printing in the darkroom has given Murrillo more freedom to complete his idea with photography. “Printing my own images gives me the opportunity to really get to know the person in the photograph. I examine each image to find the one that has captured the open window into their soul. The amount of time and/or difficulty does not count once I see the beauty created in the darkroom from the vulnerability of the model. The more difficult the image gets, the more I love the final outcome.” Currently Murrillo is working on several projects, one of which is his Orange Dress series. Here he uses one orange dress in several situations with several different dancers or models. “After a while the dress takes upon a life of its own. Dancers become thrilled to wear the dress as they care and respect this one of a kind piece.” A progression takes place after each session with the dress. Dancers start to interact more and more with the dress, giving it its own identity and at the same time the dress becomes part of them as they both perform for the camera. While others photograph the world to describe what they see, Murrillo is content to take what we see and transform it so that we see it differently.

Agusto Murrillo cv
 

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