Art speaks volumes in Honduras. For gang members, art means tattoos. Foot soldiers of the feared 18th Street and MS-13 gangs use religious iconography in body art to signify status and allegiance.
Graffiti, another prevalent art form, is also used for and against gang culture. It serves to mark borders in towns where rival factions occupy specific territories and has also been used as a means of protest.
But Honduran art goes far beyond the ghettos. Hondurans embrace art and celebrate their artists. The country has produced many influential painters. Chief among them is Miguel Ángel Ruiz Matute, an 87-year-old London resident who hardly recognises the nation of his childhood.
“It is far away now,” he sighs wistfully, struggling to be heard above the din of central London traffic. “Would I like to go back? You can walk back five years, maybe even ten years. But 50 years is a long time to be away.”
In all of Central America, Honduras is the most important nation for painting. It is full of good painters
Matute is Honduras’ most famous painter, known in his homeland as El Mago de la Pintura – the Paint Magician. He left Honduras to live the life of a wandering artist and has exhibited around the globe, and lived and worked in Spain, Mexico, Italy, France and North America.
Today home is London, where he continues to paint. If he is largely unknown to the British public, he is celebrated in Latin America as one of the region’s most significant cultural exports.
While he has travelled much, inspiration for many of his paintings is drawn from the vistas and themes of his Central American home; from the religious iconography, tropical landscapes and Mayan ruins.
Matute’s Honduras has an artistic soul. He says: “In the first part of the 20th century we produced poetry and literature. But from the late 1920s the tradition became painting.
“In all of Central America, Honduras is the most important nation for painting. It is full of good painters. It just seemed to happen and it has not been for commercial gain. Even people who live in poverty paint.”
Matute was born in San Pedro Sula, a city now riven by gang violence that was named the murder capital of the world two years ago.
He studied at the School of Fine Arts of Honduras before going to San Carlos Academy in Mexico and the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid. He is famed for experimenting with styles and subjects in which he immerses himself.
“I paint one subject for up to three years,” he says. “I will concentrate on a subject until all the possibilities have been exhausted. It can be 20 to 30 paintings, I never know. Then, when I feel enough is enough, I find something else. I go to another subject.
Each of the nation’s ethnic groups adds their own ingredients to the artistic stew
“I never know where inspiration will come from. I can go out into the street and see something and start to paint. Sometimes it’s religion, sometimes politics. I am open to all ideas. I’m almost a prostitute.”
Matute is one of the many characters from Honduras’ cultural melting pot. Each of the nation’s ethnic groups adds their own ingredients to the artistic stew.
There are mestizos (people of mixed race) of Spanish descent, there are native tribal races and also people descended from African slaves. Each has added their own cultural nuances. Many young Hondurans are also now influenced by American gang culture, its music and tattoo art.
The Honduras that Matute remembers is one of writers and painters. The country is proud of its cultural heritage and he has been awarded several national honours. He is an admirer of British artists.
“You have some beautiful painters. Fabulous painters,” he says. “Turner was a genius. Everyone talks about the French Impressionists but the French Impressionists never got so far as Turner.”
And while he is fêted in Latin America, Matute passes largely unnoticed in the UK.
“My exhibitions here are small and private,” he says. “British people are not especially interested in painters. In Spain and France if you tell people you are a painter they are interested, they want to know about you and your work. In the UK that’s not particularly the case.”
• To discover more about the Coffee vs Gangs project and read about gang culture in Honduras, visit telegraph.co.uk/coffeevsgangs
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