Born in Nuoro (Sardinia) in 1979. Self-taught, he has built his art studying the ancient treatises of painting. In 2012 is selected by Sottopiano gallery to take part in a survey show about engraving where he can confront his work to the likes of Oscar Manesi and Bernardì Roig. In 2005 he spends time in U.K. where he concentrates his research on the human figure, studying the work of Lucian Freud. Between 2009 and 2010 he lives in Berlin. It’s during this period that he starts the series of works titled “La Grande Guerra” (The Great War) where he elaborates archival photos from the first and second World War. This particular research lasts until 2014. In 2017 he moves for a year in Bucharest where he works for a solo show at the Italian Institute of Culture. He currently lives and works in Oristano, Italy.
Born in Nuoro (Sardinia) in 1979. Self-taught, he has built his art studying the ancient treatises of painting. In 2012 is selected by Sottopiano gallery to take part in a survey show about engraving where he can confront his work to the likes of Oscar Manesi and Bernardì Roig. In 2005 he spends time in U.K. where he concentrates his research on the human figure, studying the work of Lucian Freud. Between 2009 and 2010 he lives in Berlin. It’s during this period that he starts the series of works titled “La Grande Guerra” (The Great War) where he elaborates archival photos from the first and second World War. This particular research lasts until 2014. In 2017 he moves for a year in Bucharest where he works for a solo show at the Italian Institute of Culture. He currently lives and works in Oristano, Italy.
Tonino Mattu’s research is focused on relationships between reality and image mystification. The subjects of his paintings are the result of heterogeneous elements sourced from different contexts. He brings them together to create a scene, a human figure, a face. The aim of his work is not the mimetic reproduction of reality, but fiction. The wings of a theatre where the vicissitudes of the painting take place. Mattu’s images have a strong historical connotation: the painted subjects often come from photos or audiovisuals that document the history of the 20th century or the socio-historical dynamics current in our days. Isolated from their temporal context and contaminated by new elements, these images become part of a meta-reality, a utopian and dystopian world at the same time. They are images of hope and despair, imbued with a strange and troubling beauty. Tonino Mattu creates eclectic and compelling paintings with both figurative and abstract elements. In this way, the image can be altered and made subjective for diverse interpretations. His paintings are the unreliable memories of the search for the tipping point where figuration collapses into gesture.
SELECTED EVENTS
PRIZES AND AWARDS
2016 Finalist WAC Award, (UK)
2016 Winner Premio Marchionni, (IT)
2013 Finalist Premio Carlo Bonatto MInella, (IT)
SOLO EXHIBITION
2017 Bucarest, Italian Institute of Culture, Warm.
2015 Salerno (IT), Chiesa di San’Apollonia, Fragmenta, curated by Erminia Pellecchia.
2014 Samugheo (IT), Murats Museum, La Grande Notte, curated by Ivo Sera no Fenu.
2013 Cagliari (IT), Bartoli-Felter Fondation, Time, curated by Alessandra Menesini.
2010 Cagliari (IT), Sottopiano Gallery, Magni che sorti e progressive, curated by SandroGiordano and Caterina Spiga.
GROUP EXHIBITION
2018 Munich, Stroke Art Fair.
Munich, Stoerpunkt Gallery, Half a pound of Art, curated by Stephan Stumpf.
2017 Nuoro (IT), MAN Museum, La costante resistenziale, curated by Micaela Deiana.
2015 Milan, Villa Bagatti Valsecchi, Expo Arte Contemporanea, curated by Vittorio Sgarbi.
Sassari (IT), Pinacoteca MUS’A, Cortesie per gli ospiti, curated by Davide Mariani.
2013 Oristano (IT), Pinacoteca Carlo Contini, The Dark Knight, curated by Ivo Sera no Fenu
2012 Nuoro (IT), MAN Museum, Caratteri ereditari e mutazioni genetiche, curated by Cristiana Collu.
2011 Venice Biennal, Italian Pavilion.