Exhibition curator: Miha Majes
The exhibition Amor Fati, which is on display at the Škrlovec Tower Gallery, combines works from various series of Portuguese artist Inês Matos.
Inês Matos is a Portuguese artist working with various mediums and techniques such as printmaking, embroidery and painting. Through her work, she explores several themes related to the role of women in art and society, the importance of roots in one’s identity and the creative process itself. Recently, she has been experimenting with screen-printing, mainly a Pop Art technique, mixing it with embroidery, a medium often linked with traditional womanhood. It’s safe to say that a lot of her work is deeply associated with her own identity as a working-class woman living outside her homeland. This is evident in her collection Transplanted, where through the use of dried flowers and relief printing, Inês explores the absence of a fixed soil where one can bury their roots, and how that can give us a false sense of stability. This theme is also present in My Nostalgia Created an Imaginary Country, a collection of images of Portuguese beaches under imaginary depictions that portray how homesickness can affect our perception of reality. Our memory is biased, it curates itself, and we cling to images, sounds and smells that we associate with positive emotions, even when they aren’t real. The role of women in society and art is also a major theme in Inês Matos’ work. Her collection Contemporary Status of A Woman challenges the idea that female artists should give up on having a family in order to pursue artistic greatness. Born in a generation where adulthood is gradually becoming more and more delayed, the artist reflects on how motherhood and family have become secondary to contemporary
youth. At the end of the day, even if that might take a toll on her career, she decides to be both, an artist and a mother.
-Silvia Carvalho-
Inês Matos (1992, Lisboa) is a Portuguese visual artist. She is currently attending the Masters in Graphic Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana. Previously she studied Design, with focus on graphic and communication, at IADE Creative University in Lisbon. Her art employs a wide variety of concepts and mediums. Through the use of traditional printmaking techniques such as etching, aquatint and silkscreen, intertwining them with hand stitching and collage, she brings contemporary issues into discussion. She has participated in group exhibitions, such as Živa Grafika at the Equrna Gallery in Ljubljana (2021), the 10th International Graphic Triennial in Bitola, Macedonia (2021) and the International Biennial of Contemporary Engraving in Iași, Romania (2021). Her exhibitions can be read in journalistic articles in international magazines. She won the 1st prize in the graphics category at an international competition in the Czech Republic. At the moment, Inês lives and works in Ljubljana.
Vabljeni!
Odpiralni čas:
TOR-PET: 11 – 19
SOB: 11 – 13