Series “Carné Amont”

Roberto Matta, of Chilean origin, is one of the most influential international artists in the culture of the 20th and 21st Century. He joined the Surrealists in Paris in 1938. His input to the group was paramount, and he contributed decisively to the renewal of the current. His works stem from surrealism and psychic automatic drawing to let his imagination fly free with a great metaphysical painting component.

His style

Known mainly for his pictorial works and contributions to movements like Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism, Matta worked with different artistic techniques and became involved in an endless list of proposals and movements, both in Europe and America.

“Carné Amont”

The series of engravings “Carné Amont” consists of six works numbered from 1 to 6 in which, without a narrative structure or order, Matta represented totemic figures in allusion to pre-Columbian elements and the mythology of the indigenous peoples of America. At the same time, he included themes from the Etruscan, Greek-Latin and Egyptian mythology—countries and cultures he became acquainted with—to end up developing his very own Imaginarium that addresses the issues of origins. With figurative elements and a high degree of surrealism and anthropomorphism, his social work presented this random combination of symbols and narrative that intends to illustrate the problem in a more direct and accessible manner.

Silvia Sánchez Ruiz
Curator