Photo : David Angeletti / La Compagnie Générale De Photographie
About Me
My name is Matías, I’m a digital artist with a PhD in astrophysics, and I’m based in Luxembourg.
I specialize in creating fine-art prints of impossible figures and paradoxical worlds, which combine my passion for both mathematics and arts.
My artworks trigger a sense of curiosity in the viewer, inviting them to wonder: What if reality worked a bit differently?
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I create my artworks with a combination of mathematics and digital 3D modelling, primarily using the software Blender, and printing in Hahnemühle FineArt paper.
The key element of my artworks is the use of impossible figures that contain one or more spatial contradictions, such as floors that suddenly become the roof, walls that appear to be facing in and out at the same time, and figures with ambiguous direction and depth.
These geometric paradoxes capture the viewer's attention as they try to understand out what is going, and why do these figures feel so odd to look at. That feeling of curiosity and understanding is something that I have had a lot of fun discovering, and I hope I can share it with you through my artworks.
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My formation was primarily as an astrophysicist.
I did my bachelor and master degrees in Chile, where I am originally from. Then obtained my PhD at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München in Germany, and afterwards worked as a researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Astronomy in Heidelberg, studying the formation and evolution of young solar systems, a topic which I find really fascinating.
And yet, parallel to my academic journey, I was also learning digital 3D art on my spare time. I loved the 3D aesthetic, and I liked that I could experiment and move things around the virtual scene, though I didn’t imagined that I would take it beyond a hobby.
That did change however during the last year of my PhD, when I found about the art of “impossible figures” in the works of M.C. Escher, Oskar Reutersvard, and specially in the puzzle game Monument Valley. I felt that those artworks combined everything I liked, both from mathematics and arts, and that I really needed to learn how to create them on my own, and thus I grabbed a notebook and started studying…
In the coming years (while still working as a researcher) I had the opportunity to showcase my artworks in digital art magazines, have my first solo exhibition in Heidelberg at the Paradoxon, and participate in a group exhibition with the Station Kreation collective in Herxheim Kunstgarten. With these experiences I felt that I finally needed to explore my artistic aspirations professionally, and so, with the support of my family, my friends and my colleagues, I decided to close my cycle in academia and start a new one as an artist.
Now I live in Luxembourg with my spouse, where I hope to stay, and from where I hope to create more paradoxes to share with you.
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Group exhibition “Hidden Gems II” at Kamelle Buttek (Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg)
Art workshop at Natur Musée Luxembourg with the Beelibre Team
Ttitle: Making a biodiversity mosaic
Talk at the Blender Conference (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Title: The ins and outs of modelling impossible figures.
Group exhibition at Station Kreation "Kunstgarten" (Herxheim, Germany)
Solo exhibition at PARADOXON - Kunst und Kultur e.V. (Heidelberg, Germany)
Title: The Impossible Geometry
2020 - 2021. Articles about my art technique at Sketchfab Art Spotlight and 3D World Magazine
2020 - 2023. Postdoctoral researcher (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany)
2017 - 2020. PhD in Astronomy (Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich, Germany)
Research topic: Numerical simulations of protoplanetary disks i.e. solar systems on early stages of formation
Project on 3D Visualization of astrophysical simulations
2015 - 2017. Master in Astrophysics (Pontificia Universidad Católica, Santiago de Chile)
2011 - 2015. Bachelor in Astronomy (Pontificia Universidad Católica, Santiago de Chile)
Contact me for any inquiries.
Matías Gárate
Creators Collective
57, Route d'Esch
L - 3332 Fennange, Bettembourg
Luxembourg
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