Brian Maguire and the Casa da Cultura Project at Vila Prudente, São Paulo

Abstract

I must say I enjoyed the opportunity of having had the chance to work with Brian Maguire. His work reminded me of my teacher Robert Mason when I studied with him in 1979 at Chelsea School of Art. Mason went on to produce his great series of paintings based on the workers that built The Broadgate Complex in the heart of London. I was fortunate enough to witness some of the work in process. Mason spent many hours at night portraying the men at work laying the foundations beneath the earth. These men, for the artist, were very special. They seemed to have a life of their own and his descriptions of the whole project made me realise that Robert was in fact going back to his childhood memories of the factory workers and miners from his home town of Leeds. In much the same way as Mason felt strongly towards the workers that dug deep below the surface, Maguire relates to men locked away in prisons. Although I did not know Brian from my National College of Art and Design days, I would have been aware of his work from the art scene in Dublin. Brian would have just started his work with prisoners when I left Ireland in 1986.