The Million-Petaled Flower of Being Here | Kiara Matos
The Million-Petaled Flower of Being Here | Kiara Matos
Kiara Matos in her New Haven studio. Photo: J. Gleisner.
On a repurposed ping pong table in her basement studio, ceramic artist Kiara Matos has arranged around a dozen of her recent flower sculptures. Large petals extend from the center of each form. Matos often adds delicate details—interior layers of smaller petals or tiny balls with flashes of deep red or lime green—drawing the viewer’s eye inside her decorative wallhangings. The flowers range in size and color; some are petite and pale, while others show Matos’s love for the bold colors of her native Venezuela.
When Matos and her family moved to New Haven in 2010, she had already lived in Connecticut on two prior occasions. Following her graduation from high school, she moved in with a family as part of an English Language School program when she was 17 years old. Growing up, Matos had dabbled in her mother’s ceramics studio, but she first learned how to throw on the potter’s wheel at the Creative Arts Workshop. She was not yet a potter, but her interest was piqued.
Kiara Matos. Custom wall installation at clients home. New Rochelle, NY. 2019.
Returning to her hometown, San Cristóbal, Matos studied journalism at the local university. When Matos saw a craft fair in Miami, she was amazed at the range of work she encountered, particularly the ceramic pieces, and she decided to drop out of school. She realized that she wanted to study ceramics, which was not offered as a course of study at her current school. Matos remained close with her host family during her first trip to New Haven and her host-mother found a way to bring her back to Connecticut. Ceramist Maishe Dickman agreed to work with Matos as his apprentice, so she returned to New Haven for the second time for a nine-month stay.
Back in Venezuela, Matos began making custom pieces for her mother’s interior design business. By now, she was serious about ceramics, taking classes and learning from anyone who would teach her. Around 2000, Matos settled in Caracas with her then-boyfriend. Unlike San Cristóbal, Caracas had a thriving ceramics community and several art galleries. The brilliant colors of Matos’s work made it distinct. She began exhibiting her work around town and soon she had become popular within the community, especially among the city’s network of ex-pats.
Kiara Matos. Image courtesy of the artist.
Over time, the political situation in Venezuela crumbled and crime became rampant in Caracas. In 2009, Matos was married with two young children when her husband’s business partner was kidnapped. His captors demanded over 100,000 U.S. dollars and they threatened to kill him if they did not receive the funds by the end of the day. Matos’s husband deposited several large garbage bags full of cash by the side of the road in a remote location. When he discovered one of the bags was still in his car the next day, Matos worried what would happen if the kidnappers discovered that they had not delivered the whole sum of money. Fearing for their family, Matos and her husband decided to start a new life for their family somewhere else.
Matos and her husband considered other places—they have family in Spain and Italy—but they eventually landed in New Haven, where her husband planned to pursue a new business venture making bread. Rising at 4:00 a.m., Matos became a full-time baker for the next two years. Eventually, she resumed her practice as a ceramics artist and made connections with other artists within the community. She began teaching classes at the Eli Whitney Museum and Workshop and participating in City-Wide Open Studios. “There are so many opportunities here for me compared to Venezuela,” said Matos, whose work was recently featured in the magazine Architectural Digest.
Kiara Matos. Image courtesy of the artist.
While much of her work is functional, Matos approaches her craft as an artist. “I don’t make things because I want to sell them,” she explained. “I have a clear search for harmony and beauty.” Matos creates her own glazes from silica and powder pigments so she has control over her range of alluring hues and surfaces.
At 44, Matos can see how her passion for ceramics has been steadfast for over two decades. “I have never hesitated,” she said. “I see other people changing. Sometimes I wish I wanted to try other mediums, but I decided I’m going to stick with ceramics no matter what.”
All of Matos’s quotes are from a conversation with the author at Matos’s home studio in New Haven, Connecticut on September 12, 2019. Read more about this commissioned project here.
