fionn Mar 20, 2012:

full text Please note I'm referring to the rest of the text for this interpretation, as so little context was given (I'm assuming it is this: http://icaadocs.mfah.org/icaadocs/ELARCHIVO/RegistroCompleto... )

fionn Mar 20, 2012:

precaria Hi Wendy - did you see my suggested answer? I agree 'precaria' is a bit of an odd term to use here but I don't think it refers to either 'matérica' or 'pintura': it appears to mean that he only made transient or sporadic use of this style. 'Precarious matter' wouldn't make much sense, as you say.

Julie Thurston Mar 20, 2012:

so you could just translate it literally,

Wendy Gosselin (asker) Mar 20, 2012:

Thanks! That all makes sense, but I am not sure that matter painting necessarily engages PRECARIOUS matter...it seems like it is simply concerned with highlighted the fact that painting makes uses of materials (is not pure representation. etc.)
Thanks

fionn Mar 19, 2012:

@ Wendy Hi - the thing is, the text mentions a very specific art historical term, 'pintura matérica'; if it's the same text that I've found online it is a professional art critic's text so I wouldn't have thought this is by accident. Even if Peralta Ramos wasn't part of the "movement" as such he was clearly experimenting with it or referring to it. I'd stick to "matter painting", which is pretty widely used in English (http://www.tate.org.uk/collections/glossary/definition.jsp?e... and is itself quite a broad term – it is less of a movement and more a descriptor for a particular kind of painting that focuses on the materiality of the elements used.

Wendy Gosselin (asker) Mar 19, 2012:

But I don't think this artist was part of that movement...he just did some paintings that partook of that Informalist experimentation,...any ideas on a phrase that is not so bound to a whole movement? Thanks!

lorenab23 Mar 19, 2012:

Pintura matérica is know as Matiérisme in French and it is also the word used in English

Conference Papers and Symposia:

•“Dubuffet, Paulhan, Bachelard: From Materialism to Matiérisme,” College Art Association Annual Conference 2010, Chicago, February 11, 2010.
http://www.wcu.edu/10517.asp

La Pintura matérica es una corriente pictórica, dentro del informalismo europeo posterior a la Segunda Guerra Mundial.
Su característica principal es ser una pintura abstracta que se realiza con materias diversas a las tradicionales, incluyendo en el cuadro arena, arpillera, chatarra, harapos, madera, serrín, vidrio o yeso
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pintura_matérica