Artist’s Statement

Octavio Paz said, “Reality is not what we see but what we discover.”

We discover by seeing in new ways, by removing the images previously engrained through habit, culture, or ideology that interpose themselves between our gaze and the world. We discover by seeing as a child sees, unhindered by training or indoctrination. We discover by trying to see as nobody has seen before. This is not an easy task. It is instead an apprenticeship that never ends.

It is said that one must write down one’s ideas to know what one thinks. Similarly, Imust paint to find out what I see. My paintings are the result of efforts to discover what one can see when doing so without preconceived intermediaries.

About the Artist

Robinson Muñoz was born in Chile in 1943. After receiving his medical degree, he moved to North America, where he studied Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis. He specialized in working with children and adolescents. Art played a significant role in his practice and he developed an interviewing technique which used drawing and painting as a medium of communication. Muñoz taught Psychiatry at the University of Maryland Medical School, and upon retirement enrolled in MICA, receiving his Post-Baccalaureate certificate in 2001. Since then, he has dedicated himself full-time to painting and drawing.