Of the qualities inherent in matter the foremost is motion,
not only as mechanical and mathematical motion,
but more as impulse, vital force, tension,
or as Jacob Boehme said, pain of matter
— Karl Marx

The matter contains within itself different constituent elements, allowing multiple approaches and interactions to it, thus, the affirmations and contradictions of each element intervene not only in its way of inhabiting the world, but also in the way in which it confronts other elements. Surfaces and textures are a record of the encounters and confrontations of matter; these bodies, far from being a finished project, are in constant transformation. The viewer observes a part of the process of a work, whose order and temporality contains its own rhythms and tempests.

Alongside with the previous aspects, we find the torments of the artist, who, burdened with their own histories, quests and desires, activates or discovers the material that accompanies their actions and gestures. In this sort of casual or causal encounters the interaction of the bodies leaves a record in the form of scars and visual codes on the surfaces, allowing new corporealities for memory, dreams and explorations.

" Los tormentos de la materia" is the gathering of 14 artists whose proposals reflect on the relationship between time and memory, as well as on the relationship between the artist and the material. The exploration beyond being formal and technical, becomes a dialogue with the elements that work together with the artist to constitute the creative energies that shape the work, so that both weave a relationship of accompaniments, complicities and ruptures that encompass the individual and the collective.

 — Cristian Toj, Guatemala City. November 2021