Curator’s Eye: Text Message

Color! I am bathed in rich, glorious color as I admire the work of Angel Matamoros. His multimedia paintings have a way of evoking emotions with color, plain and simple. But it is more than that. It’s in the balance of color. Or is it in how he can throw you off-balance? His paintings are grounded; they are of the earth, they are luminous and they draw you in. 

Then there are the words (often, it helps if you are bilingual). He frequently layers his colors over printed text. Matamoros seems unable to escape text, much as Mondrian couldn’t escape the line. He paints when he is not illustrating the pages of our city’s largest newspaper: His award-winning graphic work is seen daily by hundreds of thousands. That work is refined, amazingly detailed and, of course, surrounded by text. His paintings are his release, free-flowing and expressive. As they likely bring balance to his life, Matamoros’s paintings offer us intriguing settings for reflection. — C.T-S.