Open: Wed-Fri 12-5pm, Sat 1pm-6pm

3 Endsleigh Street, WC1H 0DS, London, United Kingdom
Open: Wed-Fri 12-5pm, Sat 1pm-6pm


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Vicente Matte: Shadows

MAMOTH, London

Sat 24 Sep 2022 to Sat 29 Oct 2022

3 Endsleigh Street, WC1H 0DS Vicente Matte: Shadows

Wed-Fri 12-5pm, Sat 1pm-6pm

Artist: Vicente Matte

In Chilean artist Vicente Matte’s paintings, figures glide and float through hazy, coloured landscapes. The rounded shapes of their bodies mirror those of their surroundings, their expressions and actions not revealing where they’ve been or where they’re going.


Artworks

New Moon

Vicente Matte

New Moon, 2021

Distemper on canvas

1520 × 2300 mm

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Nightfall stones

Vicente Matte

Nightfall stones, 2022

Oil on canvas

1520 × 1220 mm

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Travellers

Vicente Matte

Travellers, 2022

Distemper on linen

1200 × 1600 mm

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Behind the hill

Vicente Matte

Behind the hill, 2022

Oil on canvas

500 × 700 mm

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Fight

Vicente Matte

Fight, 2022

Distemper on linen

1000 × 1470 mm

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Sunset

Vicente Matte

Sunset, 2022

Distemper on linen

1040 × 1760 mm

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Bedtime

Vicente Matte

Bedtime, 2022

Oil on canvas

370 × 290 mm

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Rapaz

Vicente Matte

Rapaz, 2022

Oil and Distemper on canvas

380 × 300 mm

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Yellow Tree

Vicente Matte

Yellow Tree, 2022

Oil on canvas

380 × 500 mm

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Juntos

Vicente Matte

Juntos, 2021

Distemper on canvas

600 × 460 mm

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Installation Views

For his first solo exhibition in London at MAMOTH, Matte represents human beings caught between individualism and collectivity. In those paintings portraying multiple figures, the landscape sometimes appears to take over as the main protagonist, the bodies swaying between planes of colour, as in the case of Nightfall Stones (2022).

Among other paintings is the close-up of a figure gazing into their phone, titled Bedtime (2022), the weight of solitude translated into a series of distinct shapes. Whether vast landscapes or intimate scenes such as these, Matte succeeds in creating a feeling of expanse, where details are expressed as full, rounded forms.

In this fullness, Matte stamps the irrevocable passing of time. It is a process of distillation; of ‘moving into a place where there are no answers’, to transform colour and light into shapes that shift between abstraction and figuration. Matte views these shapes as projections, referencing American painter Amy Sillman, who said that ‘your shadow is your personal shape’.

To Matte, ‘Shadows are nothing but a projection of something’ – an expansion that gives a quiet monumentality to his projections, which sit at the intersection between past, present and future. ‘These works don’t explain anything,’ Matte asserts. ‘They are, above all, questions.’

Rendered in distemper and oil, their surfaces reflect processes of layering and removal, amounting to a temporal density. Created in a self-built studio at the bottom of Matte’s garden in Santiago, Chile, these paintings embody the fluid interconnection between art and life and the fullness of experience, with all its joys, frustrations and everything in between.


Born in 1987 in Santiago, Chile, Vicente Matteo studied Graphic Techniques at Taller de Artes Visuales T.A.V. Santiago, Chile from 2007 to 2010, followed by fine arts at Finis Terrae University in Santiago from 2010 to 2011. He travelled to Germany in 2014 to study at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg.

Recent solo exhibitions include Todo estrella es una ruina at Galería Patricia Ready, Vitacura, Chile, 2021; Everyone stands alone at the heart of the earth at Tappeto Volante, New York, 2021; and Giróvago at The Intuitive Machine in Santaigo, Chile in 2018.

The artist’s work has been included in recent group exhibitions including The Natural World: Part II at Alexander Berggruen Gallery, New York, 2022; The Glass Bead Game, MAMOTH, London, 2022; Habitantes, Centro Cultural Matta, Buenos Aires, 2019; Contemporary Visions 2019, BEERS London, London, 2019, and Limbo, The Intuitive Machine, Santiago, Chile, 2018.

Matte’s work has been acquired by collections including Stanford University Library, Stanford, USA; Die Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich; Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen in Berlin; and Colección Engel and Colección Ca.Sa, both in Santiago, Chile.

Courtesy of the artist and MAMOTH, London

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