Tonight: Anniversary Benefit Gala at the Brownsville Museum of Fine Art

Benjamín Domínguez grew up in Jimenez, Chihuahua, a Mexican city whose flat, desert landscapes, he says, "were as bare as a white canvas."

Perhaps that is why he was astonished, he said, when one day as a young man he walked into a church sanctuary and for the first time saw a baroque painting of an archangel. He would recall the seraph’s flowing robes and gold-plated wings years later as he began to define himself as an artist.

"I was 15 then," Domínguez said in Spanish. "I had never seen anything like it."

Now the 67-year-old artist is world-renowned for fusing magic, history and contemporary culture in his Renaissance-style paintings. His work will be the spotlight at this evening’s Anniversary Benefit Gala held at the Brownsville Museum of Fine Art.

"The Medieval Meditations of Benjamín Domínguez" debuts at 7 p.m. and admission is $75 per person.

The event is one of the most important fundraisers of the year for the museum, which operates on a half a million dollar budget and has been struggling to pay off the construction costs of the 17,000-square foot building on the corner of Ringgold and Sixth Street. The museum opened in 2006.

Museum trustees have already raised about $1.1 million during the last five years and need another $700,000 to completely close the debt. The gala is expected to bring in about $40,000.

The museum will be able to host work of such high caliber this evening because the exhibition is entirely funded by the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Mexican Consulate of Brownsville, said Barry T. Horn, the museum’s executive director.

Graduating from the Academia de San Carlos in 1969, Domínguez studied under Luis Nishizawa and credits the Mexican painter for teaching him the uses of oils and varnishes. Domínguez also taught himself the techniques of the Venetian masters of the Renaissance, the museum’s curator Jennifer Cahn said.

In his paintings, Domínguez uses these old techniques but also applies his contemporary style, she said. He will sometimes paint a current issue or include a modern item, such as a motorcycle or bicycle, making his work unique and timeless, Cahn said.

"There is a lot of push and pull between old and new in the paintings and there is also a lot of drama," Cahn said. "It is rare to see an artist that is working so deeply and thoughtfully on every level."

Domínguez said he still draws inspiration from the archangel he first saw as a teenager. He looks for the angel inside of man when painting his subjects, he said.

"Every man no matter how evil has a good side; a piece of tenderness, a place where love hides," he said. "That is what I look for."