MARÍA JOSÉ MURILLO
Lives in Brussels, Belgium, and works between Brussels and the Andes of Peru
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María José Murillo (Arequipa, Peru, 1989) is an artist, researcher, and cultural worker from the South of Peru. Through weaving, she embarks on a path of re-existence, reclaiming and nurturing her Indigenous cultural heritage, historically excluded from the Eurocentric art education she received in her country. She conceives weaving as a primary matrix of care, memory, identity, and transformation, bringing together Indigenous ancestral traditions with modern and contemporary techniques to explore the layered complexities of her Latin American identity.
She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Painting from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (2006–2011) and a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Studio from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2017–2019), through the Department of Fiber and Material Studies, where she received the Pritzker Merit Scholarship. Following her graduate studies, Murillo returned to the Andes to lead the Education Department at the Centro de Textiles Tradicionales del Cusco in 2019. In 2021, she co-founded the art collective Noqanchis with weaver-artists from Pitumarca, Cusco.
Her trajectory includes the Vila Sul Residency of the Goethe-Institut in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, in 2026; the Recherches 24 residency at the Musée de la Tapisserie et des Arts Textiles – TAMAT in Tournai in 2024; and the WIELS residency in Brussels in 2022, as a recipient of the ICPNA–Artus Scholarship 2020. Her work, together with the Noqanchis weaving collective, was exhibited in On Loss and Absence: Textiles of Mourning and Survival at the Art Institute of Chicago (September 6, 2025 – March 15, 2026).
Lives in Brussels, Belgium, and works between Brussels and the Andes of Peru
María José Murillo (Arequipa, Peru, 1989) is an artist, researcher, and cultural worker from the South of Peru. Through weaving, she embarks on a path of re-existence, reclaiming and nurturing her Indigenous cultural heritage, historically excluded from the Eurocentric art education she received in her country. She conceives weaving as a primary matrix of care, memory, identity, and transformation, bringing together Indigenous ancestral traditions with modern and contemporary techniques to explore the layered complexities of her Latin American identity.
She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Painting from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (2006–2011) and a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Studio from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2017–2019), through the Department of Fiber and Material Studies, where she received the Pritzker Merit Scholarship. Following her graduate studies, Murillo returned to the Andes to lead the Education Department at the Centro de Textiles Tradicionales del Cusco in 2019. In 2021, she co-founded the art collective Noqanchis with weaver-artists from Pitumarca, Cusco.
Her trajectory includes the Vila Sul Residency of the Goethe-Institut in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, in 2026; the Recherches 24 residency at the Musée de la Tapisserie et des Arts Textiles – TAMAT in Tournai in 2024; and the WIELS residency in Brussels in 2022, as a recipient of the ICPNA–Artus Scholarship 2020. Her work, together with the Noqanchis weaving collective, was exhibited in On Loss and Absence: Textiles of Mourning and Survival at the Art Institute of Chicago (September 6, 2025 – March 15, 2026).