For her project Arte Terapéutico, the Spanish contemporary artist documents her use of art as a medicine to dull the pain of an unimaginable loss.
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Artist’s Project: Teresa Matas
“After my son perished in a car accident early one morning in 2005, I entered a mental and physical state that to this day is difficult to describe. I was carried away by sensations that simply aren’t in the lexicon of familiar feelings. One night, in a moment of mental chaos, I grabbed my camera and left the studio. I made my way to a crossroads and lay down on the shoulder of the road. I stared directly into the bright headlights of passing cars until I saw only white. Back in the studio, I enlarged the photographs I took of these headlights, then began drawing on them with a pencil and a white marker. I let go, and what I got was starry nights.”—Teresa Matas
Based in Mallorca, Spain, artist Teresa Matas has participated in group exhibitions in the United States, Germany, Great Britain, and South America. In 2005, she received the Ramon Llull Prize, and in 2007, a retrospective of her work was shown at Palau Solleric in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. Matas’s work was the subject of a 2016 solo exhibition at Städtische Kunst Galerie Fürth in Düsseldorf, Germany. Her work is in permanent collections and selected exhibitions at Es Baluard, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Palma De Mallorca, Spain.