Angel Mateo Charris

Cartagena (Murcia), 1962.

During his academic training at the San Carlos Fine Arts Faculty in Valencia he showed an interest in pop art and international contemporary art, while he studied artists like Joaquín Sorolla and Muñoz Degrain. The combination of the former and the latter has resulted in a set of references on which the production of the most outstanding representative of so-called metaphysical figuration is founded.

Since his beginnings, when his compositions presented an almost monochrome pallet, he has been one of the most outstanding and well-received current Spanish painters. In a short time he made his own niche and created, always from a satirical standpoint, his own imaginary realm. He seems to be immune to fashion, whereas in fact he is simply ahead of it and sets the trends which come after him.

His first individual exhibition was held in 1986 at Real Sociedad Española de Amigos del País in Cartagena. Since then, audiences have directly witnessed his development via his periodic and highly sought-after individual exhibitions at Spain’s leading galleries and his involvement in collective shows and fairs.

In 1988, he travelled to New York with the painter Gonzalo Sicre to study pop culture, admire the work of Edward Hopper and discover nineteenth century North American painting.

In the nineties, his irony became more subtle, his metaphors more complex and his compositions more realistic. He was fascinated that strange images could be perceived as real, “… I wanted to make my own reality appear real.” After a subsequent trip to New York he worked on imaginary and fantastic landscapes in which he suggested the solitude of empty spaces and “déjà vu”, themes which he took from the works of Hopper and De Chirico. His fascination for everything American led him to tour the locations of the paintings by his admired Hopper and in 1995 to publish the book “Hopper’s Places”.

His work also includes tributes and quotes to Klee, Miró, Dalí and Van Gogh,… among others, and his canvases include fragments by the artist to whom he is aiming to pay tribute. Similarly, when he deems fit, he takes images from the media, cinema landscapes or characters from animated cinema or comics.

His creations are at museums such as Madrid’s Reina Sofía and Valencia’s Institut Valenciá d’Art Modern and in collections such as Fundación Coca-Cola and Bancaixa, …

2003 Ángel Mateo Charris The project Oil on canvas 130 x 97 cm