CONTACT
artist.mata@gmail.com
phone:+36 30 389 48 75

Facebook: attila mata sculptor
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Represented by Agora Gallery, NYC

BIOGRAPHY
06/02/1953 Born in Eger, Hungary
1977-1983 Studied at the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts, his master: Tamás Vígh
1981 Member of the Hungarian People’s Republic Fine Arts Foundation
1986 Member of the Young Artists Studio
1988 Member of the Artists Association
1993-1994 Secretary of the Sculpture Section, Artists Association
1995-1997 President of the Hungarian Sculpture Society
2006 One of the foundation members of the Morph Group
2018 Member of MMT (Matéria Art Association)

EXHIBITIONS

GROUP EXHIBITIONS
1985 ’40 Creative Years’, Hall of Art, Budapest (H)
1987 ’Zeitgenössische bildende Kunst aus Ungarn’, Galerie der Künstler, München (D)
1987 10th Small Sculpture Biennial, Pécs (H)
1988 ’Junge Künstler aus der DDR und Ungarn’, Rostock (D)
1988 Studio Exhibition, Ernst Museum, Budapest (H)
1989 ’Kunst heute in Ungarn’, Neue Galerie-Sammlung Ludwig, Aachen (D)
1990 ’Art of the 80s’, Ernst Museum, Budapest (H)
1992 ’Acht Ungarn’, Neue Galerie, Graz (A)
1994 Small Sculpture Exhibition, Vigadó Gallery, Budapest (H)
1997 ’Woman’, Vigadó Gallery, Budapest (H)
1998 ’Zeitgenössische Kunst aus Ost- und Südosteuropa’, Stadthaus, Ulm (D)
1999 Hungarian-American Exhibition, Budapest Gallery, Budapest (H)
2000 ’With Art into the New Millennium’, contemporary sculpture exhibition, City Park, Budapest (H)
2001 American-Hungarian Exhibition, Nexus Gallery, Philadelphia (USA)
2004 Salon d’Automne, Paris (F)
2005 Salon d’Automne, Paris (F)
2005 ’Grounds for Sculpture’, Hamilton, New Jersey (USA)
2006 ’The Road 1956-2006’, Hall of Art, Budapest (H)
2007 ’Ungarisches Accent’, exhibition of the Morph Group, Hungarian Embassy, Berlin (D)
2007 Exhibition of the Morph Group, Collegium Hungaricum, Vienna (A)
2008 ’A Selection from the Contemporary Collection of the Hungarian National Gallery’, Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest (H)
2009 Day of Painting, Zikkurat Gallery, Budapest (H)
2009 ’New Works in the KOGART Contemporary Collection’, Budapest (H)
2010 Exhibition of the Morph Group, REÖK (Regional Arts Center), Szeged (H)
2011 Exhibition of the Morph Group, Contemporary Art Center, Moscow (RUS)
2011 ’Without Borders’, Contemporary Croatian Sculpture + Hungarian Reflections, Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest (H)
2015 Quadriannale Modern Art Gallery, Pécs (H)
2015 Hall of Art, Budapest (H)
2016 Modern Art Gallery, Veszprém (H)
2016 6th Beijing International Art Biennale, Beijing (China)
2017 Summer Exhibition, REÖK (Regional Arts Center), Szeged (H)
2018 ’Lyrical Abstraction’, Agora Gallery, New York, New York (USA)
2018 Artexpo New York, New York (USA)
2018 Onishi Gallery, New York, New York (USA)
2018 Exhibition of the Morph Group, Hall of Art, Budapest (H)
2018 Spectrum Miami, Miami (USA)
2018-2019 Exhibition of the Matéria Art Association,Vaszary Art Gallery, Kaposvár (H)

SOLO EXHIBITIONS
1986 Újpest Gallery, Budapest (H)
1986 Óbuda Cellar Gallery, Budapest (H)
1989 Ulmisches Theater, Ulm (D)
1989 Cellar Gallery, Pécs (H)
1991 Künstler Bahnhof Gallerie, Darmstadt (D)
1992 Duna Gallery with Attila Orbán, Budapest (H)
1994 Hall of Art, Budapest (H)
1997 Vigadó Gallery, Budapest (H)
2001 Tower Gallery, Budapest (H)
2001 Art’otel, Budapest (H)
2002 Vadnai Gallery, Budapest (H)
2006 Grand Hotel, Budapest (H)
2006 Erdős Renée House, Budapest (H)
2006 Skoda Éva Gallery with El Kazovskij, Budapest (H)
2006 Ráday Gallery, Budapest (H)
2007 Mono Gallery, Budapest (H)
2007 Vienna Art Fair, Wien (A)
2008 Bartók 32. Gallery, Budapest (H)
2009 Art Salon, Budapest (H)

AWARDS AND SCHOLARSHIPS
1986-1989 Derkovits Scholarship
1987 Derkovits Award
1987 First prize, 10th National Small Sculpture Biennial, Pécs (H)
1992 Munkácsy Prize
1993 Third prize, 13th National Small Sculpture Biennial, Pécs (H)
2009 HUNGART Scholarship

WORKS IN PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Sphinx (1985) King St. Stephen Museum, Székesfehérvár (H)
Acrobat (1985) Modern Art Gallery, Pécs (H)
Mr Artist (1985) Janus Pannonius Museum, Pécs (H)
Passport (1986) Neue Galerie-Sammlung Ludwig, Aachen (D)
Desire (1987) Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest (H)
Tower-Nosed (1987) Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest (H)
Heilig (1988) Edwin Scharf Museum, Neu-Ulm (D)
Langer Kopf (1988) Neue Galerie-Sammlung Ludwig, Aachen (D)
Alchemist (1992) Edwin Scharf Museum, Neu-Ulm (D)
Double Figure (1994) Edwin Scharf Museum, Neu-Ulm (D)
Double Figure (1996) Data System, Ettlingen (D)

WORKS IN PRIVATE COLLECTIONS
Vass Collection, Budapest (H)
Manfred Lindinger Collection, Wörth (D)
Körmendi-Csák Collection, Budapest (H)
Deschler Collection, Ulm (D)
Szecskai Collection, Budapest (H)

Portfolio:
Artist Statement

What is my philosophy of art?

You should always choose the path you are afraid of taking.
If you get bored with making something, don’t continue. Throw it away.
In art, duty is a deserted land.
When making an artwork, use your knowledge and leave your emotions behind.
Criticism is worth considering wherever it comes from. There is no good or bad criticism, only the critic can be good or bad.
The less you try to meet the others’ expectations the bigger influence you can have on your environment.

New themes and ideas usually come to my mind as I wake up, when I’m still half asleep. I quickly make sketches of them before they fade away. After a while, I select some of these drawings and begin making a plaster model of the scuplture. I use a great variety of materials, such as bronze, stainless steel, acrystal, wood, and paint, and I like combining and contrasting them. But I decide the actual material, technique and size of the work only after the plaster model is ready.

As a sculptor, I’m interested in many different kinds of themes. Some are ancient, such as sex(uality), death, god, the human figure, the head etc., that are depicted by my work in an unusual way. The characteristic parts of the human body – the hand, head, leg, eyes – are not present in their true-to-life anatomical structure, but are reduced to geometric forms and reorganized as geometric structures. I am also attracted to the extreme. If my theme is a god, it must be the goddess Shiva with her many arms or Golem with his brutal energy. I also find some modern themes quite challenging and exciting: outer and inner forms, i.e. that which can be seen from the outside and the inside of a form, how to use color - paint - on sculpture, the structure of the material and its effect on form, the outer as well as inner side of a surface on a sculpture, design, combining two kinds of materials on the same artwork. I enjoy experimenting.

Why do I create sculptures? Because it’s The Viewer who really matters to me. He/She is the most important. In fact, without The Viewer sculptures do not exist. That is to say, by looking at the actual sculpture each individual creates his/her artwork in his/her imagination bringing it into existence. As a matter of fact, everybody takes something a little different from the same sculpture and creates another artwork by using his/her own creativity, feelings, memories and experiences. My goal is to catch The Viewer’s attention and to inspire thought. I would like to invite The Viewer to see my sculpture and to take part in the creation of the artwork using his/her imagination.

Portfolio: