From amongst the varied artistic expressions to be found in modem Macau, there can be no doubtthat the search for a pure Macanese identity is being led by Guilherme Ung Vai Meng. His is a typified Macau which lends itself to the sweep of the soul or brush. His is a humane Macau, searing with life.
His drawings and paintings brim over with light, brightness, Mediterranean memories exiled from Portugal's grip on the far western tip of Europe.
Nor does Ung Vai Meng hesitate in bringing to his work his latest experiments in combining colour, texture and materials to abstract the pith from his native land, created from Portugal's encounter with China. His mural "Macau" won first prize in a competition for a painting to stand in the entrance hall of the National Library headquarters. At first sight, the observer is smothered by the grandeur and suggestive strength pushing out of the picture.
The onlooker falters and finally halts as the hold of the mural induces him to turn his head round at the landing on the stairs.
What does it mean, this chunk from the hull of a Titan's ship? Or is it the powerful trunk of the Tree of Life falling to earth like heavy drapes, channelled with roots and entwining vines? It is Macau - Portugal and China - the call of the sea and the land.
The muddy depths of sienna-stained rice-sacks cut across a piece of Chinese earth, the grandiose setting for the oldest farming culture in the world.
Over them a tangle of ropes lies in exuberant Manueline relief, evoking memories of ocean adventures in an embrace of ropes as thick as anacondas, enmeshed in dense tresses, stretched into a Samson's grip, and here and there suffocating beneath the knots which inculcate the most impressive dynamism. Ropes which rise up and converge, as if attracted to a powerful invisible pole, giving the observer a hunch that if he were to turn the painting around he would surprise the secret energy which stirs the Earth and moves man and sea.
Therein lies the heart of the dragon. A powerful hint of present vitality roped to the past, in fact the mural is emblematic of Macau's future, a vote of confidence in its cohesive strength and sense of identity.
A homage to farmers and sailors, the constructive, productive effort of mankind, this mammoth-sized representation is not well-served in its present position.
Just as a giant bean-stalk is out of place in a renaissance garden, this is a coat-of-arms for a majestic wall, rather than for the limited space reserved for it.
Better for it to be placed in a future quayside point where it could welcome visitors to the City of the Name of God.
Ung Vai Meng's mural "Macau"
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