About The Artist

Magi Matteo was born in 1985, is a self-taught artist; he approached the painting when he was around 25 years old, after acquiring a heterogeneous wealth of experience thanks to the passion that moved him towards contemporary art. The passion for drawing, which accompanied his life as an artist since the early years, supported him in undertaking his artistic journey, the journey that was unveiled suddenly, almost like a revelation. Magi does not study, but is inspired by the great masters of Art. His volcanic imagination led him to try different techniques and materials in order to achieve what his mind has "planned". The artist does not matter to be included in a box, to acquire a quotation, to become part of a collection: he wants to tell honestly what comes to life in his mind, as in a continuous daydream. This is the first thing you notice in Magi’s works, their informal reality, leading to wonder what has inspired him. It is what is painted a dream, a reprocess of feelings, a vision? Probably in his works there are elements that come from each of these worlds, making them mysterious and fascinating in the eyes of the beholder. Looking at his works we see the wide variety of techniques, materials and colors, from the plastic Cast to the grays of Cements, to bright and monochromatic colors of extroversions, up to the wonderful nuances that only in his watercolors and acrylics we can distinguish, all passing just from an informal art, where everyone can draw their own personal meaning, to a figurative painting that expresses what the eye of the artist observed and imagined, and that he could never represent with a simple camera. Rawer and cruel, are the sharp and defined marks of his works of his movement "Feelings" where Magi expresses his inner feelings through geometric shapes imprisoned, tied and suffocated from tangles and knots, where only a small part of these figures are free or nearly, so they can meet and touch each other and somehow, take a breath of fresh air from the "black tangle" that oppress them, to go to those areas of color in which they are free to express themselves and to live their feelings. The Cements, finally, are only the last of his works in order of time where the canvas’ extroversion and introversion reach a different level, becoming almost sculptures, because the concrete makes them look like heavy and indestructible blocks, even though they have actually an hollow heart made of canvas frames, that have very little strength and resilience. They are defined as informal works by the artist, but in fact even here come to light feelings and sensations made visible and tangible from the handiwork of the artist himself, sometimes from fingerprints and dips, sometimes bulges or heights. What is constant in the works of this artist is not only a reference to the feeling, but also the long series of cultural references, that make his works something universal. Without unnecessary rhetoric, Magi returns to the observer a diary of experiences, feelings and thoughts that are not something individually subjective, but that join the artist and the observer, in an exchange and a communication dense with meaning. www.magimatteo.it