USFCAM presents a major exhibition of works by internationally acclaimed artist, Brian Maguire. Entitled La Grande Illusion, the exhibition spans two decades of work that spotlights the artist's lifelong quest to draw attention to global injustices, war, and human rights. One of Ireland's leading cultural figures, Maguire has turned the practice and tradition of painting into acts of visual testimony.
Maguire's paintings are global in scope and are derived from projects undertaken between 2007 and 2024 in Mexico, the Mediterranean, Syria, Sudan, the United States, and the Amazon. Maguire's artworks are painted from direct experience and involve the artist spending extensive time on the ground with the communities that welcome him. The results are, plainly put, paintings that visualize the commonality of human suffering and dramatize the plight of people in need.
La Grande Illusion examines a period of intense productivity for Maguire. It explores his activism through large-scale paintings made in response to time spent in Juárez, Mexico (2012–15), the Mediterranean (2016), Aleppo (2017), South Sudan (2018), the Amazon (2022), Arizona (2022) and Brazil (2022–23). His paintings track global themes. Among these are migration, economic inequality, the drug and gun trades, sexual violence, and ongoing damage to the environment. By embedding himself in the communities he paints—from Juarez's streets to the war-torn neighborhoods of Aleppo—Maguire uses his canvases' large format to represent populations that have been silenced and forgotten.
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