After enrolling in the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2005, “lines” became the first research subject within Miguel’s practice. The exhibition's symmetrical entrances vividly showcase Miguel’s distinct investigations into line drawing—one side reveals his figurative and sensual approach with ink, while the other side displays his abstract and rational expressions through oils.

Initially drawn to the notion of creating an entire painting with a single continuous stroke, Miguel’s introduction to ink painting captivated him with its potential to delineate figurative human forms. Later, he gradually liberated himself from the confines of this “one-line” technique, seamlessly incorporating paint within his compositions to refine his imagery. This evolving process propelled Miguel towards increasingly abstract interpretations of lines.

On the other end of the Central Gallery, Miguel’s works skillfully depict coils and lines with oil paints, casting deceptive shadows to evoke a sense of three-dimensional space. These tubular shapes are also reminiscent of graffiti, the earliest art form Miguel encountered while growing up in Upper Manhattan, New York. For Miguel, the continuous strokes found in graffiti echo the essence of calligraphy in a broader context.

In 1998, Miguel embarked on his first journey to China to study the language. Returning to the country in 2005, he pursued his passion for oil painting at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. Throughout nearly two decades of living and working in Beijing, Miguel remained deeply engaged with Chinese culture and art. He not only explored ink brush and Gongbi to discover new artistic techniques, but also drew inspiration from Buddhist classics, Dunhuang murals, and folklore to convey profound ideas.

Inspired by Huang Yongyu’s surrealistic masterpiece Mountain Ghost (1993), Miguel immersed himself in the evocative imagery of apes lamenting amidst mountainous landscapes depicted in Qu Yuan’s poem Mountain Ghosts of Nine Songs. This exploration gave birth to his seminal early work, Vast Forest (2018), characterized by his distinctive style of “heavy collage”. Since then, apes have become a recurring motif in Miguel’s artistic repertoire. Serving as symbolic transformations of human beings, the apes in Miguel’s works are depicted with facial features crafted from ready-made materials such as cell phones, nutshells, and discarded medicine, imbuing them with poignant social commentary. While deeply influenced by traditional Chinese culture, Miguel critically examines the pluralistic contemporary society, reshaping his cultural identity within the dynamic interplay of the old and the new, the East and the West.

(Vast Forest will be on display in UCCA’s Open Gallery from June 22 to July 13, 2024.)

After living and working in Beijing for over a decade, Miguel returned to New York in 2016, and traveled frequently between these two cities in pursuit of creative breakthroughs. This period of intense linguistic and cultural interchange prompted the artist to reflect deeply upon the convergence and clash of cultures. His cross-cultural experience leads him to explore simplified human figures, separate limbs and body parts, and to portray symbolic representations of the human form within his compositions. Through this process, he has created a body of work which explores collective social experiences, and resonates with a wider cultural audience.

Miguel’s long-standing interest in synecdoche for the figure can be seen early on is his artistic journey. This thematic thread is apparent in early works such as Red Line (2007), where the absence of a foot and disconnected hand foreshadows his exploration of the segmented human body. In later works, feet pointing skywards and the incorporation of his own casted hands serve as metaphors for agency.

Furthermore, Miguel’s art abstracts humans into symbols, notably through the playful concept of the mouthed peach, which he terms the “single-celled human.” Peaches, much like human beings, have fur and fuzz; every peach is unique in terms of its pattern and print; and they even wrinkle as they age. Drawing parallels between peaches and human beings, Miguel adds layers of playful complexity to his artistic narrative.

The central wall of the gallery space showcases Miguel’s recent “heavy collages,” in which his distinctive creative vision is fully realized. For Miguel, the “heavy collage” serves as an intersection of various artistic endeavors, seamlessly blending his extensive practices in painting, collage, and sculpture into one composition. Beginning with Vast Forest (2018), Miguel found an intrinsic connection between the rebellious nature of monkeys (particularly prominent in traditional Chinese culture) and his own creative practice, as his work playfully challenges artistic conventions and surpasses material constraints. Each of the nine new “heavy collage” works center around portraiture, yet the portrait subjects are intricately intertwined with landscapes to initiate a dialogue between the “inner realm” of human consciousness and the tangible external world.

Miguel considers the central piece—The Artist (2023)—as a type of non-literal self-portrait, where the sinuous serpent embodies his ongoing metamorphosis. The replicas of pre-modern Chinese paintings nestled in the upper corners not only reflect Miguel’s fascination with wave patterns but also direct attention to the latest large-scale paintings on the adjacent walls (Untitled, 2024). This central piece subtly echoes the spatial logic of the exhibition while unfolding Miguel’s artistic evolution.