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  • "The choice of tones and colors plays a very particular role in Daniel Mattar’s practice, which he distills with meticulous care... Colors are never there by chance; they convey hidden meanings, codes, taboos or prejudices. They are a reflection of our daily life, our language and our imagination. They are neither immutable nor universal and have a history.

     

    - Martha Kirszenbaum

  • Photographic Drawings Photographic Drawings Photographic Drawings Photographic Drawings Photographic Drawings Photographic Drawings Photographic Drawings Photographic Drawings Photographic Drawings

    Photographic Drawings

    Daniel Mattar appropriates tiny color charts gleaned from various hardware stores, on which he projects drops of paint. Once rephotographed and reprinted, the result is a set of pop modernist shapes and colors that give the illusion of large patches of soft material in relief. 
  • Polaroid Polaroid Polaroid Polaroid

    Polaroid

    Inspired by his first trips to Japan in the early 1990s, Daniel Mattar takes as a starting point a set of photographs of a Japanese doll whose surface has been repainted with titanium white paint. Mattar’s artistic practice has therefore developed around the concepts of recycling and rearrangement of materials and everyday objects. Thus, his frequent use of tea packages from the famous American brand Yogi Tea, labels of industrial products, bank notes, found photographs, stamps or images cut out from magazines, seems to highlight his interest in the tragic banality of everyday life. 

  • Quadra Quadra Quadra Quadra Quadra

    Quadra

    Daniel Mattar’s series entitled Quadra presents square shapes taken from color charts on which color classification numbers are inscribed. The intensity is deeper, evoking the energy of the sea and the wind. The texture of the image seems crumpled, agitated, as if traversed by waves and hollows, giving the surface of the photograph an appearance that is sometimes stormy, sometimes lunar. It is this tension and this manipulation between reality and visual illusion which gives the works of Daniel Mattar this particularly seductive shift and strangeness.

  • Shodō Shodō Shodō Shodō Shodō Shodō

    Shodō

    The ephemerality in Daniel Mattar's photographs resides in the precise gesture of his hand with wooden sticks soaked in paint, which also connects him to the painting universe. As in Japanese calligraphic writing, the movement has to be quick and precise. The artist has little time to activate the camera and capture the desired volumetry of the paint drops before they dry. The drops have a curved, curved body and an organic appearance and contrast with the colourful background.
  • Vista Aérea Vista Aérea Vista Aérea

    Vista Aérea

    Daniel Mattar  exploring the micro-universe of surfaces that leads, in this series the intention to fly over valleys, oceans and mountains formed by the mineral pigment on paper where the artist marks, erases, adds several layers of gestures, calligraphy, colour dust and volumes that reveal themselves monumentally. The final result is materialized in large photographic prints.
  • Mineral Mineral Mineral Mineral Mineral

    Mineral

    In the Mineral Series, Daniel Mattar uses different pigments of ochre, royal blue, lemon yellow or forest green. In Mattar’s works, pigments also have a social or political history. Some of them come from Morocco, notably from Fez, a city famous for its tanneries, while others are ash residue from Amazonian forests threatened by deforestation.