Carlos Matallana: Interiores. Entren sin llamar

23 November 2024 - 24 January 2025

Carlos Matallana

Interiors. Come in without Knocking

November 23, 2024 — January 24, 2025

Santa Cruz de Tenerife. ATC Gallery is pleased to announce "Interiors. Come in without Knocking," an exhibition of paintings and drawings by the Canarian artist Carlos Matallana, born in Lanzarote in 1956. The opening will take place on Saturday, November 23, at 11 a.m., at our headquarters on Calle Callao de Lima, 39, Santa Cruz de Tenerife. The exhibition will remain open to the public until January 24.

"Interiors. Come in without Knocking" brings together a collection of paintings (oil on canvas) and drawings (ink and bleach on paper) that the artist began to produce immediately after the end of the COVID-19 pandemic confinement.

In these productions, Matallana reflects on personal space and the COVID-19 pandemic. He reveals the intimate space of his life, and his works emerge from the intense relationships with the objects and spaces that the artist has chosen to inhabit.

In a certain sense, the exhibition is a self-portrait through the objects he paints. Instead of representing family members, Matallana focuses on the personal objects that contribute to defining his inner world: his own paintings—hanging on the walls or packed against the wall—and those of his friends, his library, his studio, the hallways, the kitchen, etc. The only exception is a single painting in which his daughter is depicted along with a group of friends in his living room and his dog.

The artist calls this production "objective painting." However, the exhibited collection reflects a period of introspection and meticulous observation of the personal environment. It offers us a profound vision of the artist's emotional and psychological state, in which objects become metaphorical representations of Matallana's personal experiences and narratives.