Mindlessness

PRISME is pleased to invite The Dot Project to present Mindlessness, an exhibition of new works by Portuguese artist Pedro Matos.

Mindlessness, as a state of not being present – unaware, unconscious and restless, best reflects the present climate of our culture. In opposition to the notion of Mindfulness, that rooted in Zen Buddhist traditions is recently wide-spreading and infusing into social media world with the alarming ‘dilution’ of its meaning; Matos finds his practice informed by the mindless gestures.

The works on show are a continuation of artist’s Subliminal Gesture series, first executed in 2016, that references patterns found in cheap outdoor flooring common to the suburbs of Portuguese towns and cities. The use of disregarded and broken pieces of stone as an affordable and productive way of creating pavement is common practice in Southern European countries. From the well known “Calçada Portuguesa” or Italian “Terrazo”, to the more economical fragmented marble and concrete floor fillings. In their construction, workers employ an approach similar to that of an artist: composition, form, colour and  scale are elements that are all applied. However they occur in an unconscious manner.

The exhibition features five – acrylic enamel on raw cotton – canvases in both generous and intimate scale. It is a reflection of Matos’ ongoing research into the seemingly random, decayed, disregarded and ephemeral – the ideas he finds present in urban landscape as well as nature itself; from marks involuntary created by human activity to those produced by way of natural phenomena. In the form of meticulous pieces, the artist explores the intricate complexity of abstract textures and detailed fragments situated in the gulf between abstraction and representation.