Tony MATELLI

(born 1971 Chicago, Illinois, USA)

Matelli studied in New York, Wisconsin and Michigan before working for a number of years with Jeff Koons. His work plays experimentally with the idea of reality: Gravity seems to have been suspended, time stilled. Materials appear not to be what they are. The technical perfection of the hyper-reality of his deformed sculptures and their placement in self-contradictory or surreal configurations leads to a sense of prevailing absurdity. Often his figures are displayed entangled in comically bizarre situations – they’re sleep walking, or they’ve just been mowed down by a piano; moments that catch us by surprised and which the artist has lovingly rendered in all their hyperreal detail.

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Tony MATELLI
Josh 2010
Collection of the artist