Info: hola@matos.ooo

Carlos H. Matos (b.1983, Mexico City) lives and works in Mexico City. Employing tools and methods from both architecture and sculpture, Matos deliberately places himself at an ambiguous point between the two disciplines. By stripping architectural elements of their context, he invites us to re-evaluate preordained notions of purpose and meaning, in a process of increasing abstraction that extends beyond the format of the building. Through an idiosyncratic vocabulary of forms, Matos’ work constellates a quasi-fictional realm, complete with ruins, rituals, routines, and characters whose existence is only hazily implied. His process and creations often come to be defined by site-specific contexts, materials and histories.

Matos graduated from London’s Architectural Association and subsequently founded and directed the AA satellite school Beton Machine from 2014-2017. The programme took place in Edward James’ surrealist garden in Las Pozas, Xilitla, MX;  and served as a platform to research empirical casting techniques as well as drawing connections of the site to the layered history of monumental sculpture in Mexico. Matos, together with Lucas Cantú, formed Tezontle in 2016, a collaborative project that produces research-lead work based on an array of aesthetic and historical references. Using intensive material experimentation, they have constructed a distinct imagery that evokes a bucolic utopia, at once modernist, pre-Hispanic and primitive.

Matos presented his first solo exhibition, Finest Hour in Arcadia, at PEANA, Mexico City, in spring 2025. He is currently completing a large-scale project titled Xoxhi-Calli at LACASAPARK Art Residency in upstate New York. His first exhibition in London is scheduled to open in fall 2026 at the Architectural Association, accompanied by a public installation at Bedford Square. He is also working on a temporary intervention at Frank Lloyd Wright’s historic Hollyhock House in Los Angeles. Matos’ work has been presented at institutions such as Museo Tamayo, Mexico City; Museo MARCO, Monterrey; Kasmin Gallery and Friedman Benda, New York; Richard Neutra’s VDL House, Los Angeles; and SF MoMA, San Francisco, where his work is part of the permanent collection. His public projects include Tenaza, a monumental sculpture commissioned by the XIII Havana Biennial in Havana, Cuba; and El Papelillo and Casa Monte, two experimental buildings on the coast of Oaxaca, Mexico, which explore notions of shelter, seclusion, and ritual. As part of the duo Tezontle, Matos was also shortlisted for the Serpentine Pavilion in London, UK.