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Artists
Léonce Raphaël Agbodjelou
Charly D’Almeida
Gérard Quenum
Oswald Matro
Carlos Sodokpa
Elon-M Tossou
Nathanaël Vodouhè
Dominique Zinkpè
Collections
Fine Art Painting
Fine Art Sculpture
Fine Art Photography
Featured Collections
Past Collections
Eliane Aïsso
Kifouli Dossou
Wabi Dossou
Louis Oké-Agbo
Epaphras Toïhen
Hub
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About
History
Manifesto
Les ILÉTISTES
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Collection

Oswald Matro

For Oswald Matro, the act of painting is a dream log of sorts in which the artist

deciphers his own reflections on contemporary West African societies, through tales weaved by the threads of history, traditions and the identity Inherent to his native Benin.

Oddly abstract yet figurative and incredibly expressive, Matro's canvases are gateways to infinite plains of creative expression, where the artist's visions materialise through myriads of effulgences, so vivid, textured and captivating, they almost instantly provoke an intoxicating sensory overload inside the viewer's mind.

Varying viewpoints pertaining to human interrelationships, familial conflicts and societal interplays, cross pollinate both Christian and Animist spiritual ideologies. For Oswald Matro, Art is a means to rise above the existential conundrums of our times, by creating portals of dialogues between the past and the future, between the realms of the seen and that of the unseen, toiling away at the intersection of dream and reality.

Matro's compositions balance colour and perspective with such fluidity, yet with renderings that are devastating in both wit and humour. Deceptively innocent and fanciful, each painting alludes in fact to urgent socio-economical and environmental issues, questioning moral stances on the meaning of life, humanity’s insatiable lust for consumption and destruction, the blatant waste and a mass consumerism rampaging through our planet's natural resources and our interdependence to an incessant flow of information we feel compelled to process daily.

Referencing traditional iconographic painting, Oswald Matro's technique challenges most expectations regarding this medium. In essence, Matro aspires to elevate the very act of creation to a holistic paradigm. Matro distinguishes himself through his use of components that oscillate between synthetic and organic. Often echoing notions of dystopia, each painting is stage to an impressive display of visual details enhanced by the use of acrylic, oil pastel, spray paint, siphoned sand and plaster, which the artist superimposes on his canvases, using a brush, a palette knife or simply his fingers, before scraping them off, as if to better emphasise the meaning of the work and reinforce its interaction within a three-dimensional space.

Through his practice Oswald Matro postulates to document the complexities that continue to shape the relations between the African continent and Western colonial imperialist forces. Seeking to offer an antidote to the rise of neoconservatism and racially divisive mechanisms that too often undermine the sovereignty of our shared humanity, Matro's work endeavours to address the status quos maintained by world leaders who seem unwilling to formulate adequate solutions to economical and geopolitical issues, and remain mulishly diverted from their mandate to alleviate the sufferings of mankind.