Carlos Mata

CARLOS MATA (Palma de Mallorca, 1949 - Barcelona, 2008).
"Horse S/T", 1997.
Cast iron. Unique piece.
Attached certificate issued by Margarita Yarmats, last sentimental companion of the sculptor.
Signed on the base.
Measurements: 33 x 30 x 13,5 cm.

The equine theme was predominant in the singular work of Carlos Mata. The basic forms to which this sculpture subsumes (it should be noted that this is a unique work, with no other examples) are rooted in the ancient Mediterranean civilizations, in the cradle of our culture. Iron, in his hands, is endowed with an extemporaneous patina, archaic and avant-garde at the same time. In his sculptures, Mata was always faithful to this reduction of objects to their essence and of silhouettes to pure lines. It is precisely this purity that makes the warmth of the iron texture shine even brighter, competing in prominence with the shape of the piece itself. Mata opted for bronze or iron to reflect the warmth of manual labor, with its arid and irregular, rough surfaces, inviting to touch, and also with its fluid, soft, rounded crevices.

Sculptor, painter and engraver, Carlos Mata studied Fine Arts in Barcelona and Paris, cities between which he has shared his residence since his formative years. He held his first solo exhibition at the Canalls gallery in Sant Cugat del Vallés in 1976, and this first exhibition was followed by others in Barcelona, France and Germany. Among his most recent exhibitions are those held at the Kreisler gallery in Madrid, Casal Soleric in Palma and Can Marc in Girona. His sculptures in unpolished cast iron take advantage of their austere and rough qualities in figurative stylizations of a certain primitivism and archaeological evocation, generally taking as a theme animals, such as bulls or horses. The same schematic intention can be seen in his painting, of a neo-figurative, planist type, with a contained and reduced chromatic range. In 2008, as a posthumous tribute, an important anthology of his work was held at Haras du Pin, in Normandy, France. It was a retrospective consisting of 35 bronze horses, in addition to his jewelry collection.