Brian Maguire (1951) is a militant artist. He roams the world, focusing on disenfranchised and marginalised men and women, the victims of global capitalism, deadly wars and trafficking. His political awareness finds its origins in the civil rights movement in which he took part in Northern Ireland. For him, painting is an act of solidarity, the fruit of a practice that consists of “meet[ing], question[ing], listen[ing], understand[ing] and pass[ing] on the story”.
His painting is figurative and since the early 1970s has borne the struggles of those he sets out to meet in the United States (Arizona), Mexico (Nature Morte Series), or Syria (Aleppo Paintings). Also initiating numerous interactive projects, his practice is inseparable from the connections he has woven over the years with the communities that he supports.