Fr Eduardo Emilio Agüero, SCJ
Diogo Muñoz is a respected and talented artist who lives in Lisbon. He studied painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon. His works are exhibited in prestigious collections in Portugal and abroad.
CAC – Círculo de Amigos da Cultura de Macau invited Diogo Munoz to present a solo exhibition exclusively themed on Macau and its people. He started preparing it in 2015, but the work and presentation had to be postponed due to Covid and other unforeseen circumstances.
Through his exhibition “Macau Forever”, the artist tells stories and remembers history with simplicity and joy because, as he confesses, he loves Macau.
He is also a fervent Catholic and as such presents his art.
When did you first come to know about Macau?
About 25 years ago. The first time I came to Macau I came with my future father-in-law, who was not yet my father-in-law, but I was already engaged to my wife. He came here to do a fado show because he’s a fado singer. And I came to sing with him.
Do you sing too?
Yes, I sing. I sang opera and I had a band.
How did you come to Macau for this exhibition?
The architect Carlos Marreiros invited me to do this exhibition. I had already had many exhibitions in Macau. I’ve exhibited at the Oriente Foundation and other places. As I love Macau, many people think I live in Macau.
Here’s the history of Macau…
Just a part of Macau’s history, there was neither the space nor the time to paint it all. Macau has many interesting figures, so I chose some characters that mean the most to me or the ones that are related to my connection to Macau. I chose historical figures, figures from the arts, painting, poetry, writing in general, political figures, figures involved in Macau’s transition to China, which was good, and two or three of my friends from Macau…
I also painted a picture of Father Manuel Teixeira, a priest who was from Freixo de Espada à Cinta. I thought he was Macanese because his eyes were slanted and he spoke Chinese. He came to Macau very young, lived here for many years, and became a historian specializing in China and Sino-Portuguese relations. He wrote many books about this.
How can you connect faith with your art?
I’m not sure if faith appears directly in my paintings, but at least it does in the way I work, and in my defense of faith in this environment. When I began to study fine arts, I remember a professor who taught very well but said that the world’s first great marketing image was Jesus Christ, like Coca-Cola, and I got quite angry. There were lots of Catholics, but nobody said anything, but I always defended my faith seriously. I replied to the professor that he should not offend us in what is most intimate to each of us.
I love to provoke, but you’ll never see any obvious provocation or insult in my paintings. They will always be deeper, more intellectual provocations. I take great care to give beautiful, harmonious things. My compositions are always balanced, although not symmetrical.
You make your living from painting. How does your family share your artistic vocation?
We have three daughters. It’s very amusing because my twelve-year-old daughter, Benedita, isn’t in a Catholic school but she does catechism. Catechesis is important to us. My wife and I were catechists. Going to Mass, and going to catechesis are part of Catholic life, we don’t need to talk about it, but everything is part of it, like the arts, including music, are part of our family life.
Creation is good because it comes from God. My life has always been linked to the arts. I’m an artist, and the girls are very contemplative. For example, my daughter Carminho, has a mobility problem and can’t get up on her own. Our house has a beautiful view, and every day, one thing I do in the morning is lift her and show her the view, and every day she says: “Wow!”… It’s beautiful! This is a contemplation of the beauty of creation. And every day she sees the same thing and always says: “Wow!”.
Do you think art is your vocation?
I’m sure of it and I’ll explain why. I have a real talent for drawing. When I was little, I could draw like many adults can’t. That’s a gift, and I drew impressively well. But as it was a gift that had been freely given to me, I always had a problem; I felt uncomfortable stressing only the money aspect of my art, which supports my family. But it happens so often that some people want to have one of my paintings and can’t afford it, because my paintings aren’t cheap, and I offer it to them. Or someone I know who has a relative who has died, who was very dear to me, and who had a very close relationship, I do an intimate painting of that person and give it to them. This is my way of taking off the weight of not giving anything. I work hard, but I know I was born with an innate talent for this. A Catholic friend with a lot of faith told me: “You’re a conductor, you have a light, and you need to give it away”. I think that this is my vocation.
How can art be a vocation for young people?
I believe that the most beautiful thing there is, is art. I fail a lot but I have a lot of faith. I don’t pray as much, but while I’m painting, I’m praying. I think that what says the most about who we are as people, of course, the rules of society, of course, the importance of a well-functioning economy, but what says what we are as a culture, what we’re made up of, is the arts… music. Now they’re saying they’re sending signals into space for someone to listen to us, but what will we send? Are we going to send a treatise on economics or are we going to send a painting, Mozart’s music, or poetry?
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