Tory Mata grew up in Stoneham, Massachusetts, and received her BA in Fine Arts from Clark University in 2005. After traveling through the southwestern United States, South America, and Nepal, in 2010 she relocated to Key West, Florida, where she is currently based.
Her painted works, though not representational, use the language of landscape and are influenced by these varying terrains and their unique, native colors and forms.
Her recent series are minimalist and meditative in tone, with an emphasis on natural materials, textures and processes. Shades of black and white combine to explore the appearance of opposites and the unifying balance between opposing states. Elements that hold symbolic and personal value (notably clay, bone, rust, wood and cotton) come together in varied forms to speak to themes of loss, transformation and impermanence. Works often build in series and multiples, observing the complexity of relationship and the fragmenting of experience.
Mata received the Anne Mckee Artist Foundation grant in 2019 and 2022, and the South Florida Cultural Consortium grant in 2022. She is represented by Jag Gallery in Key West, Florida.
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