One of my personal heroes, Portuguese-born artist Pedro Matos is going to exhibit at Ivory & Black this April! The show, simply entitled Heritage is Pedro’s first solo-show in London and features new, monochromatic oil paintings by the artist, who became famous with those awesome graffiti-inspired portray-paintings…
Pedro Matos’ paintings feature a rich and complex layering consisting of different languages of painting, which combine texture, patterns, realistic figurative painting and text. Through this visual language, his work draws the viewer into a dialog surrounding the impermanence of social and cultural values. Inspired by the french philosopher Michel Foucault’s work, subject to his paintings and explorations are the themes/concepts of Knowledge, Power, History, Sexuality, Discourse, Episteme and Impermanence. The exhibition will also comprise the release of a limited edition artist’s book of Pedro Matos’ work and life. (Ivory & Black)
After reading the press release, I first thought that it’s probably not a good idea to switch from black and white portraits to colorful ones as it’s a totally different thing in my eyes. But after watching the teaser video above, I’ve got a good feeling about this new works, as they’re just looking amazing, with all these different layers and details! It’s still the Pedro Matos we all know, but using red or blue instead of black…