Construcción en cinco colores [Construction in Five Colors]

As one of the founding members of the Taller Torres- García [School of the South], Matto made work that reflects his steadfast belief in a timeless and absolute artistic realm. His geometric abstractions were greatly informed by his experiences traveling to ancient cultural sites in South America and by the influence of Joaquin Torres-García, a central figure of the European avant-garde and Latin American modernism during the early twentieth century. Torres-García developed the philosophy Constructive Universalism that affirmed the universal value of art by merging symbols from ancient and modern cultures through abstraction. Construcción en cinco colores [Construction in Five Colors] is one of the best examples of the influence of Amerindian and modern abstraction in Matto’s work, and is the only painting he did on cloth. It shows his thorough understanding of the geometry and compositional balance characteristic of Incan textile patterns.