Mathieu Devavry "MATI", is a multidisciplinary artist born in 1981, France. He graduated from the Ecole Blot in France. He is also a learnt sculpture at the "Aline Ozenfant” studio. Mathieu experiments with different artistic expressions such as optical illusion, painting, street arts and various forms of performing arts such as poetry, theatre and dance. Through these different crafts he talks about the issues of our reality/society, questions the mentalities and ways of thinking of the participants and the audience.

 

Since 2007 Mati have been collaborating with various artists, creating multidisciplinary experimental projects in France, Italy and Cyprus. In recent years, thanks to these projects, he has developed methodologies for the education of children. He has since applied these methodologies in his work with immigrants and refugees in Cyprus.

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One example is the teaching of recycling techniques to raise awareness and introduce children to art in a non-academic way, since it is important to approach the value of art in societal contexts, transforming problems into solutions.

 

He presented three different performances at the MAXIII Museum in Rome with the NGO “Urban Gorillas”. For the past three years, in both Milan and Cyprus he has been a part of "No reservato" for the project “Under the Tents it Rains”: the intervention-interference of the project takes place in Nicosia's public spaces and invites pedestrians to participate, listening to recorded historical events and using painting techniques to express their interpretation. The last representation was "Agorart": dance, painting, poetry - the project questions the artist's place in our society.

 

Mathieu has a great interest in collaborative work that results from participatory processes between other artists and the community at large, such as the residence of 4-way painting, that he undertook with different artists like David Poey, Jerome Dupré La Tour, Sou Soul Koung, Eli Zarour, Anthi Pafiou, Yantey, Pierre 13… This experience began in 2004 and continues to this day.

 

Currently, his painting is based on spontaneity, interiority and is often expressed through an organic evolution between abstraction and surrealism. The themes are generally linked to his life in the city, it is a way for him to translate his feelings and his vision, mixing different techniques, oil painting, acrylic, spray, pen drawings, collage.... Each of these tools allows him to realize this according to the moments, but also the memory of different event in his life.