"Photography, video and installation are the main media in my artistic work. My fascination lies primarily in visually and narratively exploring motifs of absence. In doing so, I create scenes in which space and light create a tension to reveal an absent.

I encounter phenomena such as farewell, abandonment, and death in my everyday experiences and those of my Colombian relatives with their religious and mystical beliefs. These condensed stories from my personal life permeate my works and form their narrative character, with which I approach the absent."

His catalog as winner of the UdK Berlin Art Award is available from UdK Berlin University Press:
Mateo Contreras Gallego (order no. MA 0518-2023,2), UdK Berlin 2023, 32 pp.
Price: 10,00 Euro + shipping costs.

Mateo Contreras Gallego (*1993 in Bogotá, Colombia) completed his studies in fine arts at the Berlin University of the Arts in 2022 in the class of Ursula Neugebauer with the title of master student. In the winter semester 22/23 he was a lecturer at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the UdK.

Infos about the artist: ­mateo-contreras-gallego.com

Instagram: mateocontreras