"I USE FIGURATION AS A STARTING POINT. THE SUBJECT IS A BAIT FOR ABSTRACTION."

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In Matteo Venturi's painting, there is a permanent conflict between what is planned, calculated, and what his intuition guides him to. The path is never fully marked.

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What carries him is more the idea of ​​building a picture than of painting a picture. It starts with a character - famous or anonymous - that he selects from a large collection of photographs, then inserts into a summary composition previously produced on a computer. This composition is an "empty shell" just waiting to be activated.

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Then comes the time for brushes and hazards. The techniques developed on the canvas are diverse: superimposition of textures, chiaroscuro supporting the contrast, or the gestural treatment of the material, borrowed from American abstract expressionists - Richard Diebenkorn in particular.

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CAREER

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Matteo Venturi did not follow an academic course. His career began in Rome in the production of special effects, where he excelled in the digital modeling of organic shapes. In 2013, he was an artistic revelation when he visited the retrospective exhibition of Francis Bacon at Pallazio Strozzi in Florence. He then takes the measure of the infinite possibilities offered by the technique of painting. Several years of experimentation will be necessary for him to master the extreme sensuality and the materiality of the oil.

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In 2021, he exhibited for the first time in France at Thomas Tournemine Gallery.

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