Dionnys Matos

Biography

The work of Dionnys Matos is a meditation on objects and matter, and perhaps time, where cups, bowls, discarded packaging and debris are transformed from their raw materials into symbols of their meaning and a reflection on their presence in our lives. These objects are obsessively treated, sometimes injected with acrylic, and inhabited by a sophisticated color palette with almost monastic subtleties. His work is essentially, ecocritical and turns our gaze to the complex everydayness of use, finding poetry therein.

Dionnys Matos was born in Holguín, “the City of Parks”, near the mountains and the sea, it is not surprising that nature and the challenges that it faces, defined his voice. He started in 2006 at the Professional Academy of Plastic Arts "EL ALBA" where he was trained as an artist. After graduating, Dionnys focused on the audiovisual as a tool to create social questions and emphasize life and death; a theme which is rooted throughout his work both plastic and audiovisual. He has won several awards in Cuba, such as the ICAIC Youth Exhibition, Almacén de la Imagen, TV Serrano, and Havana Time.

The environment. Which is a theme that comes to my work in the form of awareness. Nature moves me, it affects me, from a small piece of garbage on the beach to the excessive consumption and its consequences (…) I have the conviction that a change can be generated from art. And that is what I want to do with my work.

The work dynamics of this multidisciplinary artist since 2010 to date demonstrates not only a constant process of search and evolution, but also his need not to be trapped in immovable visual patterns. Dionnys moves easily and freely between watercolor, acrylic on canvas, painting, photography or injected bubble wrap, with a technical mastery that evidences a constant process of self-awareness as a creator.

In his multiple series, he transits from the contemplation of beauty and tranquility to the contemplation of chaos and catastrophe, and not as gentle metaphors, it is the weight of reality: one day we may wake up and beauty will only be the memory of what our natural world once was. Dionnys and his work are young, but the roots of his urgent message are not: this is the world, the planet, we have, and we must know how to see it and care for it, now.

His work has been widely exhibited and collected in Latin America and the United States.

The artist works and lives in Havana, near the sea.

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