COMMUNITY
Master Sculptor Aims High BY TRACY BURTON
Few visitors arrive in the Algarve expecting to see a tusked elephant, and yet the towering metal sculpture at Porches commands the attention of all those heading along the N125. For Lagoa artist Antonio Miguel, creating large-scale steel animals is all in a day’s work. A former garden landscaper, he has been creating his extraordinary metal sculptures for 15 years, having discarded wood for being too heavy and susceptible to weather conditions. Over the years, Miguel – as he is known to everyone – has combined his considerable landscaping and artistic skills to create a distinctive and vibrant garden dotted with sculptures and works-in-progress. A stroll along cobbled paths reveals a giant ant, a globe, a clock and several trees. A buffalo-like creature stands proud on his workshop roof, while the carapace of a king crab is propped up on oil cans while it awaits the construction of other body parts. Elsewhere, the continents – Africa, Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Australia– adorn a whitewashed wall. Miguel has concentrated on creating scaled-up models of the natural world – mammals, birds, reptiles, insects, even fish – because they are popular with customers. The desire to create was always there and Miguel recalls making small sculptures at school. These days, it is rather grander projects which occupy his time, many of which are commissioned. He sketches everything out first and, depending on the scope and complexity of the project, will often make a scaled-down model or section of the piece in polystyrene.
10
Follow us on tomorrowalgarve
Once the customer is happy with the design, Miguel prefers to finish the sculpture without further consultation. He usually cuts the steel in his workshop and welds it outside. The final stage – ‘the roasting’ – is completed naturally by rainwater and the hot Algarve sunshine. Some commissions are particularly challenging. One company wanted a scaled-up, threedimensional sculpture of their horse logo. “The horse was very difficult,” Miguel recalls. “I used a polystyrene model to help me achieve good proportions.” Miguel works mostly with coated steel, although a stroll around his workshop reveals an intriguing stash of components awaiting the perfect project: a chair frame, broken drum, bicycle chain, a section of a wheel, a garden spade and hoe, metal rods and old hand tools. When required, he can complete a commission in six weeks; however, his preference is to work on four to five pieces simultaneously to avoid his workshop becoming ‘like a factory’. He is currently working on several commissions, including a life-size Aston Martin DB5 and a 2.5-metre model of a man’s face. The Aston Martin DBS is the best-known James Bond car and Miguel is excited about the commission. “It’s my first car and is for a family here in the Algarve who collect Aston Martins.” He has already created three prototype sections for the car’s body, including one constructed entirely from steel bolts. Miguel estimates the commission will take around six months. The sculpture will eventually be displayed at the
Aston Martin Museum in England. He also enjoys creating abstract pieces with a high level of detail and he is currently working on a time-themed piece for a new hotel at nearby Salgados. He has included visual representations of paradise and hell, highlighting the earth’s natural beauty alongside mankind’s propensity for accident and destruction. A woman extends her arms from the central timepiece, longing for freedom. This labour of love has been two years in the making, with Miguel working on it between other commissions. He is happy in his work; however, he admits he finds it hard to part with a finished sculpture. “When I finish a piece there is a pain in my heart. It’s your creation. It starts from nothing, then you build something and you can see it,” he explains. Miguel’s work is sold and transported all over Europe. The 400kg elephant and the ant will be heading to France and several giant lizards are already on display in Munich, Germany. Transporting such enormous structures can present a challenge. A life-size giraffe had to travel lying down. An eight-metre Bulbo tree would not fit into one truck. Fortunately, the client was local, so Miguel removed the branches and the two sections were transported separately and welded back together in situ. Between creating the larger sculptures, Miguel makes smaller, portable pieces, including distinctive willowy figurines, and twodimensional animals. “I will always have ideas, the problem is time,” Miguel says. “Time is the biggest enemy for the artist.”
+INFO: Porches Roundabout EN125, 8400-489 Porches Mestre.toinos@gmail.com @mestretoino
