MATRIZ

This Is Not A White Cube presents Matriz, a solo exhibition by Portuguese artist Susana Cereja bringing together 17 works, most of them previously unseen. Among them are the monumental works MATRIZ, BOADICEA, HIDE & SEEK and HELIA, produced over the preceding three years. The exhibition reflects a multidisciplinary creative process shaped by research and by the use of different media. At its centre are drawing and the Arraiolos stitch, traditionally associated with Portuguese tapestry, which Cereja brings into the field of contemporary art through new forms, scales and structures. The title Matriz draws on the Latin matrix, associated with womb and origin, and on a broader idea of the maternal as a place of creation and genesis. These meanings form the conceptual basis of an exhibition concerned with origin, transformation and the generative force of the feminine. Cereja creates connections between past and present through works in which technique, tradition, history and collective memory intersect. The Arraiolos stitch, historically linked to communal making, becomes a vehicle for mythological reinterpretation: stories of deities and primordial forces are woven into contemporary forms. Timeless narratives open onto questions of affection, transformation, identity and power. Each work functions as part of a larger interconnected narrative, echoing the way myths are built and transmitted over time. The artist's background in architecture also informs the structural precision of the works and their relationship with space. In Matriz, this approach meets a practice closely connected to collective making. That collective dimension emerges both from Cereja's engagement with communities and from the history of the Arraiolos stitch itself, a technique rooted in shared labour. It also begins in the studio, through a team built around knowledge, trust and the sustained production of the work. Matriz proposes a space in which to consider origins — of life, creativity and identity — and the communal threads through which they are formed. The exhibition bears witness to a heterogeneous and continuously expanding practice developed by the artist since 2017. Moving through the works, different disciplines and techniques come into view before converging on MATRIZ, the work that gives the exhibition its title and that, through its scale, complexity and three-dimensionality, becomes both a point of origin and a point of return.