"Paisajes de siempre" 18 (Alexandre Calame: "Lago Leman", 1849) ("Timeless Landscapes" 18 [Alexandre Calame: "Lake Leman", 1849])

Mateo Maté explores the boundaries between the private and the collective through multidisciplinary work, addressing issues of identity, power and territory from a critical perspective. In ‘Timeless Landscape’ 18, Maté recomposes a classical landscape, replacing traditional brushstrokes
with military uniforms glued to the canvas, highlighting how military camouflage would not be possible without the optical innovation brought about by Impressionism and its decomposition of nature into perceptual spots and colours.
The piece functions as an act of symbolic restitution: it denounces the ‘theft’ that war has perpetrated on art and aesthetic experience, restoring the landscape’s evocative power through materials steeped in history and conflict. Maté thereby reveals the manipulation of the gaze and the symbolic appropriation of territory, inviting us to distrust images and question the visual narratives that shape our perception of nature. The landscape, turned into a commodity and battlefield, is presented as a symptom of a society marked by the consumer economy and disputes over hegemony.

María Teresa López Flores