He has held only exhibitions at the most prestigious galleries and cultural centres of Bolivia: the Museo Nacional de Arte, Espacio Patiño, Fundación BHN, and Galería esART. From 1988 until the present, his work has also been displayed at Roventa Gallery, Vienna; Edición Francesco Conz, Verona; Mural for the Gressel Family, Steyr, Austria; Galería Pancho Fierro, Lima; María Sangrante, Installation, Hotel Orient, Vienna; Galerie Hartmut Beck, Erlangen, Germany.
His work was included in various collective exhibitions at the Academie des Meaux Arts, in Paris; Bolivia, Pintura Actual, Centro Cultural J.M. Moncloa, Madrid; Bolivia, Arte Nuevo, Centro Cultural Mapocho, Santiago, Chile.
Sol Mateo participated at the Bienal in Pucará, La Paz. His works have been represented at various international biennales: Trujillo, Perú, Sao Paulo, Cuenca, La Havana, and Venice in 1997, as well as the prestigious art fairs ARCO and ESTAMPA in Madrid.
Sol Mateo has received many important awards having been selected twice for the First Prize at the Salón Pedro Domingo Murillo in La Paz and an Honourable Mention at the same Salón. He has also won the First Prize in painting at the Bienal in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, an Honourable Mention in Arte Sacro, Galería esART, La Paz, and was selected for the VIII Bienal de Arte Sacro in Buenos Aires. Recently he was honoured by the Bienal Iberoamericana del Cartel, and received the First Prize at the Salón Internacional de Arte (SIART) in La Paz.
He plays an active role in the re-interpretation of art carried out by contemporary international artists. He strives to eradicate the stereotypes that may characterize a regional art identified by either Bolivia or Latin America. He focuses on concepts of universal imagination, rather than local idiosyncrasies.
Sol Mateo is known for his non-traditional works in mixed media. He uses techniques and materials that are quite unconventional. Some works border on humour while creating a playful combination of concepts. He often appears to mock the audience for collecting “High Art”, while his “work of art” can be modestly encased in a commercial box.
The same conceptual undercurrent is present in his work San Sebastian. A favourite saint within contemporary artists, Sol Mateo seems to address the commercial value of this modern icon by gluing a bar code on his chest, apparently reducing it to an item that can be bought off the peg.
Source: esART.