Franklin Collao

FLUX FORMA MEGAFLAT
October 19, 2026

FLUX FORMA MEGAFLAT extends Franklin Collao’s investigation into color, light, and the physical surface of painting. Following Flux Forma, presented at Colector Dallas in 2025, this second installment brings the inquiry to Monterrey through a decisive shift in materials. A precise question anchors the exhibition: How flat can an oil painting be?

While Flux Forma explored movement and luminosity within a two-dimensional pictorial field, MEGAFLAT makes the support an active participant in the image. Collao applies oil paint directly onto stainless steel sheets in exceptionally thin layers, creating a translucent chromatic film. Beneath the pigment, the mirrored metal reflects light, producing an interplay between painted color and the surrounding space.

The title enters into dialogue with Takashi Murakami’s Superflat, articulated in his 2000 manifesto. Connecting historical Japanese art with manga, anime, and consumer culture, Murakami’s concept addresses both the compression of pictorial space and the flattening of hierarchies between fine art and popular imagery. Collao brings a distinct material emphasis to this dialogue, examining how oil paint can relinquish its familiar body, density, and texture while retaining its expressive force.

As the painted layer becomes thinner, the reflective support contributes more directly to what is seen. Physical flatness gives rise to impressions of depth and radiance, while changes in illumination and viewing position alter the relationship between color and reflection. The surface invites sustained looking, its appearance unfolding through the encounter between pigment, steel, light, and the observer.

FLUX FORMA MEGAFLAT places painting at a threshold of material visibility. In reducing the substance of oil to a translucent veil, Collao opens the image to its surroundings, allowing a nearly weightless layer of color to activate the space around it.