Matasová Adéla *1940

The Double Hug, 1986

linen paper mass, box, museum glass, 165 × 92 × 9,5 cm
Adéla Matasová (born 1940) is a contemporary painter, sculptor, multimedia artist and university professor. In 1958–1964 she studied monumental painting under Prof. Vladimír Sychra at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. In addition to painting, the artist began to focus on material realisations based on a personal adaptation of informal impulses. In the 1960s she worked with artificial resin, later with paper linen, from which she created large objects and installations suspended in space. The installations always included sound, chosen from the field of minimal art or sound art, or later created by the artist herself. She first exhibited them in 1986 at a solo exhibition and at ART 17 in Basel, in 1987 at CIAE in Chicago, and in 1994 at the Festival of Czech Art in New York. At the same time, she also worked with wood, and later she used steel sheet, also combined with mirrored surfaces, which were used to create kinetic objects. Last but not least, she has also been making videos, which are one of the most interesting manifestations of contemporary Czech art. From 1990–2003 she worked as a professor in the studio of alternative techniques at the Academy of Arts and Crafts in Prague, and in 2000 she accepted a position as a visiting professor in the Department of Art at the University of Colorado, USA. She is a member of the Art Discussion Society. Her work is represented in the collections of the National Gallery Prague, the City Gallery of Prague, the City Gallery of Budapest, the City Gallery of Krakow and a number of private collections.