Alonso Mateo
"Full-body Portrait"
Alonso Mateo has created a personal language of strange pictorial realism through the distortion of forms: the elongation of the figure as in the reflection of a funhouse mirror where everyone is tall and thin, like fragments of a televised distortion. The painting of Alonso is a manifestation of the world of appearances, an effect demonstrated by show-business entertainments, the frivolity of existing social strata and their transformation into something almost non-existent.
"Full-Body Portrait" is a pictorial show that arises from the traditional and the vanguard. His sarcasm about social pulchritude always present, Alonso deals with the full body as a genre of painting, and recreates the aristocracy and society of an era with sacred personalities, artfully dressing up and undressing the rich and famous, the few monarchs and multi-millionaires of the world today. More than a portrait that preserves the personality is an irony that is preserved in the hybrid representation of the figure.
Alonso establishes a simple order and perfect compositional harmony. A decorative pattern of printed cloth recurs as an extensive background. He combines broad chromatic spaces with the narrow figures. This atmosphere at first glance can be an abstract painting or a bedroom wallpaper. He accentuates the character of public appearances and the idea of something printed, not painted, "writing" on the edge of the painting the name of fashion designers along with his own name: like another object, including himself on the level of the world of the rich and famous and introducing himself as a name-brand within the same painting.
The work of Alonso has been characterized by its ironic vision similar to magazines "Hola" and others like it, with his sarcastic taste for real personalities and show business, and his excellent purist creation.
Alonso Mateo was born in Havana, Cuba in 1064. He studied at the Higher Institution of Art in Havana. He has lived in Mexico and the United States since 1990. He has had one-man shows in museums and galleries in Spain, Mexico, the United States, Puerto Rico and Cuba. He has been chosen in three Rufino Tamayo Biennials, in 1998, in 2000, and 2002. He has participated in numerous collective shows in Europe and the Western hemisphere, among which stand out "Mexican Contemporary Art" in the Ludwig Museum in Budapest, the Museum of Fine Arts in Havana, The Museum of Modern Art in Mexico, in the Luis Adelantado Gallery in Valencia, Spain, among others. He has resided in Florida for several months, and his first exhibition in Miami will be inaugurated on September 9 and will run until October 20, 2006 in Kunsthaus Miami, 3312 North Miami Avenue, Wynwood Art District.