Artist Spotlight

Patrick McGrath Muñiz, The Guide, oil and metal leaf on panel, 36” x 30”

PATRICK McGRATH MUÑIZ Since 2006, the artwork of Patrick McGrath Muñiz has been intellectually driven to explore social and environmental injustice and indifference, “linking Christian iconography from Spanish colonial times to the propaganda of modern-day American consumer culture.”

The artist’s work became more fiercely personal as hurricanes, their strength and frequency amplified by climate change, destroyed his family home in Puerto Rico and damaged his own home in Houston. His recent losses of family, friends, and mentors, in combination with the forced isolation of the pandemic, brought Muñiz to a deeper understanding of the artist’s place in the world and his own reasons for making art.

“I’ve learned that painting with the heart is much more challenging than painting solely with the mind. I’ve come to the realization that to know thyself is a crucial key when I paint.”

In the painting The Guide, Muñiz’s grief for what he has lost emerges as a visual reflection of the fragility of life on this planet. In a crow-quill sketch for this self-portrait, a memento mori (Latin for “remember that you must die”), the artist looks downward in contemplation, his fingers loosely touching his mouth. Shadowing Muñiz, the Grim Reaper, a friendly hand on the artist’s shoulder, gazes at the artist’s mental machinations and demons. Muñiz’s young son, with cherubic wings, stands with his small hand on his father’s forearm. The boy’s direct gaze dares the viewer to challenge the power of hope.

The more formally composed final painting, The Guide, shows the artist with his son on his lap, both challenging the viewer. The boy holds a stuffed lamb and security blanket that symbolize innocence, new hope, new life. The symbols and archetypal images surrounding them allude to consumerism, cultural traditions, popular icons, and the artist’s life experiences. A ruled grayscale palette in front of the artist is a metaphor for the nonduality of life and the subtle changes one experiences from birth to death.

Muñiz speaks of an awakening: “Death can also serve as a guide to live better lives. . . . [We are impelled to] be more appreciative of what we have and the people we love.

“. . . When painting with the heart, one comes to understand the things that really matter in life and in art.

“Countless unnecessary consumer products and superfluous digital devices with their constant stream of data distract and distance us from knowing who we really are.”

Patrick McGrath Muñiz, Shared Fictions, oil and metal leaf on panel, 25” x 29”

Shared Fictions questions our responsibility in the massive spread of information and disinformation, truth and fake news. Two nude women, Eve and Pandora, stand side by side, sharing an insatiable desire for knowledge and discovery. Emerging from Pandora’s cardboard retailer box is a cloud of conspiracy theories and other negative influences of our times, some harmless, others not. Above the two women, Maat, the Egyptian goddess of truth, justice, and harmony, kneels with her left arm, the one closer to the heart, extended toward a tree (productive information), her right arm toward a nuclear mushroom cloud (destructive information). Muñiz wittily explains, “As IT users, web explorers, and consumers, we are left to our own devices to decide what we wish to buy and believe.

“I see painting as an antidote [to the constant data distraction] and a mirror reflecting on the essence of our humanity,” Muñiz concludes. The humanity and soul-searching in his new work ask us to consider our own responses to the forces that affect our lives, both within and beyond our control.

Perceiving with Heart

In a rare combination of ritual, metaphor, and remembrance, these three artists encourage us to remember who we are—to perceive, deeply understand, and embrace who we are—and also to hold close the knowledge that all of our history and understanding has an inevitable end. Life is a cycle, and from this cycle a greater mystery comes forth. When we know ourselves, and create acceptance and gratitude in our lives, the vagaries of life become part of life’s wonder.

David T. Alexander