1. Introduce yourself
I’m Miguel Rodrigues, I’m from Portugal, born in Coimbra, an important university city in the country, but now based in Lisbon and always with a foot in Istanbul and Dubai.
Since my time as a student at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Lisbon I have been exhibiting in different spaces. Two years ago and by invitation of AWC Gallery I started to come to Dubai and exhibited in the UAE.
At the beginning of this year I also had the chance of doing a solo exhibition in Bahrain by invitation of Bahrain Gallery and with the patronage of Sheik Rashid Al Khalifa.
2. What was your story of becoming an artist?
My family has always had a connection with the arts, from theater to painting and this vision was fostered in me since I was a child. When I was little I remember making small objects with materials I found around me.
My great passion for art, however, I think stemmed from my fascination with history and heritage. I always try to study history through the eyes of artists.
When I went to study sculpture at the Faculty of Fine Arts, I made that bridge between my passion for heritage and contemporary art.
Since that time I have been working on a style I call Hyperbaroque, that mixes the concepts of hyper reality with the baroque, making it even more baroque then the original.
3. At the invitation of the Dubai-based gallery AWC, you were asked to create a site-specific piece for the DIFC Sculpture Park. I would like to hear the inspiration and thoughts you received from this proposal.
It was a great surprise to receive this invitation by AWC Gallery to do a site-specific sculpture for DIFC Sculpture Park 2023.
We created the Nuage as a sculpture to make you look above the clouds as Dubai and the UAE are always thinking of the future.
We made this sculpture in Portugal during a few months to prepare and then we spent 6 nights at DIFC installing it. It was a very good opportunity to work on a really big scale project since the sculpture is 12 meters long and hangs more than 10 meters from the floor.
4. What is your impression on the solo exhibition in Dubai and Is there a goal you definitely want to achieve in Dubai?
This exhibition was prepared with AWC Gallery to have two different moments. The first moment was in Lisbon Portugal, were this exhibition was shown Beginning of November. The sculptures were created in Lisbon; Portugal inspired by the centuries of white stucco and the beauty of gilded carvings at the Saint Catarina Church
On a second moment we brought the full exhibition to Dubai, where we are now showing it until the end of January. This cultural bridge is in the DNA of the gallery and also something we wanted to keep exploring.
5. There are plans to hold an exhibition in South Korea in March next year, and as this is the artist's first visit to Korea, it will be a very valuable time to exchange and communicate culture and art with Korea.
Do you have any wishes or desires that you would like to achieve through exhibition in Korea?
We are now working on the final plane for the exhibition in Seoul in March. I have never been to South Korea but I’m really curious, everyone is talking about the art fairs I visited.
After all this years doing art I’m every day more interest in all the cultural exchanges that can bring, I even think sometimes as my sculptures as an excuse for that.
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