Interview by Rui Pastorin
While in the Macau International Airport’s departure area, you may have noticed a long and colourful tile mural.
The 210 metre-long and 2.10-metre-high mural was created by Portuguese painter Eduardo Nery (1938-2013) and unveiled in 1995. Now, the University of Saint Joseph (USJ) is paying tribute to the artist’s work and the process of its creation in an exhibition entitled “Unveiling the Artistic Journey of Eduardo Nery at Macau Airport”, which is on until April 26.
Hosted by USJ’s Faculty of Arts and Humanities, the free admission exhibition is open to members of the public and is located at the Kent Wong Exhibition Gallery on the Ilha Verde campus.
Exhibition curator and dean of the faculty Prof. Carlos Sena Caires told the Post during the opening ceremony on Thursday that aside from celebrating Nery’s work, the exhibition also commemorates both the 10th anniversary of the artist’s passing and the 30th anniversary of the local airport, which is next year.
The large mural took over a year to create and comprises over 20,000 tiles, according to Sena Caires, adding that it celebrates the cultural differences and similarities between Portugal and Macau, which are both referenced in drawings and its motifs.
In curating the exhibition, Sena Caires said that he went through almost 400 documents such as drawings, texts and photographs, adding: “Not everything is there but I think it shows, in a very interesting way, the creative process, how he did it, and how difficult it was. And maybe we can appreciate that in this exhibition”.
Taking on “kind of a didactic point of view”, Sena Caires noted that what they want to showcase is the process of the mural’s creation, in which exhibition-goers can learn more about how Nery and his team came up with the idea for the panel, the creative process, where Nery went to take references to design and draw on the panels, among others. Moreover, drawings that were not accepted or chosen to be integrated in the final version of the panel can also be seen.
The faculty hopes to take the exhibition to other places in Macau in the future such as the airport or other local galleries, according to Sena Caires. He added that he hopes that the faculty can show the students the importance of creation and innovation, as well as to “think about the context where you live and what you can bring to civil society with your art”.
The exhibition is open from Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. and on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. For more details, visit www.usj.edu.mo
Exhibition curator and dean of the faculty Prof. Carlos Sena Caires poses in front of the exhibition banner at the gallery on the University of Saint Joseph (USJ) campus in Ilha Verde on Thursday. – Photos: Rui Pastorin
