The works of Miguel Afa, an artist represented by the Brazilian gallery A Gentil Carioca, are on display at Rhinoceros Gallery in Rome until June 3, 2026. During a studio visit, with the help of a translator, we asked the artist about the inspiration behind his exhibition The Time That Lives in Me – O tempo que mora en mim and the creative journey that guided the realization of his pieces. Specifically, we inquired about the extent to which the Eternal City influenced his artistic sensibility.
Miguel Afa spent two and a half months in residence at Rhinoceros, immersing himself in the city and allowing its monuments to permeate his inner world. As the title The Time That Lives in Me suggests, the exhibition is imbued with the sentiment of time. One might immediately argue that time doesn’t belong to the figurative arts, which are confined to the three canonical, static dimensions. However, the fourth dimension powerfully enters Afa’s poetics, altering perceptions and teachings.
To find a point of reference, we could look to Cezanne’s Montagne Sainte-Victoire, a work where the artist desperately tried to grasp the power of light, to control shadows and the sun’s passage, to understand color nuances as the hours changed. Isn’t this a sentiment of time? An elusive time that passes, that is no longer ours, unless it’s captured in memories?
Time is a subtle narrative thread that must be understood in its relative dimension. The artist shared that he was moved by the thought that the Palatine Hill was inhabited almost a thousand years before Christ. He then drew a comparison with Brazil, which is only 500 years old! “The walls with ruins and paintings are a contemplation of time, they are different from Brazil. Ruins in Brazil have a different meaning than here; they signify precariousness, but in Rome, it’s different. There’s another perception of ruins.”
Rome: An Inexhaustible Source of Inspiration
Afa recounted his first night in Rome, spent drawing in front of the Colosseum. He arrived without a precise idea of what he wanted to paint. Then, the city inspired feelings and emotions. Rome immediately revealed itself as powerful and imaginative. In the first few weeks, he explored alleys and visited monuments. It was then that the Urbe offered a first suggestion: time. The architecture prompted Miguel to contemplate time: an inexorable reflection, especially considering, as the artist rightly observed, that people are always in a hurry.
He focused on the light of Rome, that subtle orange line that reflects between the sky and the domes. Some of his paintings are inspired by three symbolic locations in the Capital: the Palatine Hill, Palazzo Barberini, and the Orange Garden. Reflexo das ruínas no Palatino (2026), Despedida do sol no Jardim das Laranjeiras (2026), and Corredor do Palazzio Barberini em um dia de chuva (2026) are the works born from this external observation mirroring internal notes.
Thus, he realized that the exhibition would not only be about time, but about the time within himself. The city proved to be a resonance chamber for lost or momentarily held feelings in the depths of memory. He revealed that the vestiges evoke affectionate thoughts that take him back to Brazil: “Rome brings me back to my childhood, even though it’s my first time here.”
Miguel Afa retrieves time and holds it back from its inexorable flow. His observation of Rome allows him to capture the unstoppable passage of hours, rendered in chromatic modulations that echo his memories. Light becomes a natural source of imagination, meeting the artist’s intimate sense of time. Paraphrasing Ungaretti, one could say that through intense memory, one returns to innocence. Miguel thus begins a journey backward, reclaiming the image of memories, and of his aunt in O afeto que aprendi (2026). He had possessed this photo since he was small but had never painted it; only now did the idea emerge through his brushes.
The Time That Lives in Me – O tempo que mora en mim
What is time if not the most curious manipulation of existence? For some, it passes quickly; for others, it feels slow. The flow of time is a sundial of varying speeds, each person traversing it with their own history.
As he describes his works, Afa explains that in Brazil, fruit trees are found in courtyards, while in Rome, they are on the streets. People, Miguel notes, don’t notice this because they are in a hurry. “The privilege of the artist,” he adds, “is to have time.”
Afa grasps the laws of time and draws a universal tapestry from them. A fruit is prominent in his works: the orange, which he compares to the Jackfruit, an exotic and particularly beneficial food from Brazil. Tempo de plantar (2026) and Tempo de colher (2026) represent the essence of time’s flow materializing through the process of fruit ripening.
How long is time? Where is time? What is the meaning of time? These are the questions the artist poses as he reflects on the relativity of time’s passage and the need to reclaim the necessary gestures for every action. This concept is evident in the two paintings titled O tempo das coisas I (2026) and O tempo das coisas II (2026). Idleness also enters his poetics: “In Brazil, when we take breaks, we are in the courtyard.” The courtyard becomes the intimate space of memories, the place where pauses occur and life is less laborious. Siesta (2026) and Café da tarde (2026) are set in courtyards, where hanging laundry further evokes a familiar atmosphere of affection and welcome – the same sentiments Rome managed to evoke in him.
The Practice of Color in Miguel Afa
We asked the artist why his works are infused with what could be described as almost savory colors. “Miguel Afa’s art draws its expressive strength primarily from its masterful use of color. His palette is complex and surprising, capable of generating tones rarely encountered in nature. His magic lies in his ability to transform seemingly ‘muted’ colors into elements of extraordinary power, thanks to a refined and vibrant composition,” writes the artist Sidival Fila.
Afa reveals that for him, color is linked to memory. Color has an introspective value; it is a space of the unconscious where images are no longer clear and sharp but almost dissolve. This practice of color is found in Morandi, who had a color of memory. The artist explains that in Brazil, his practice is assimilated to metaphysical painting. His poetics are always aimed at investigating the meaning of things beyond matter, touching the dreamlike spheres of memory. His paintings are a reflection of cosmic memory. Memories recede into historical time, becoming metaphysical traces and eternal heirs of the hours that have passed.
Finally, some works, such as Saudade: palavra brasileira (2026), are permeated with orange dots. We asked him why. He confessed: “Almost a magic represented by the dots. In this painting, people have their eyes closed and don’t know what’s happening in the world. The dots are like music, a cinematic vision.”
In the exhibition The Time That Lives in Me, Miguel Afa captures the unbearable lightness of the present, which we, accustomed to living in haste, hardly perceive anymore. He confides that this exhibition could only have been born in Rome, the Eternal City, the custodian of history’s memories.
