PAINTING AND ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH REALITY
The relationship between painting and reality runs throughout the history of Western art as an unresolved tension. For centuries, it was believed that an image was truer the more faithfully it could imitate the visible world, through tools such as perspective, anatomical precision, and the rendering of volume. In reality, every painting is always the result of a linguistic and cultural elaboration: it does not simply record the real, but reflects the artist’s vision of the world and their personal interpretation of existence.
MATTEO MASSAGRANDE’S PICTORIAL RESEARCH
This principle is evident in the painting of Matteo Massagrande, often mistakenly defined as hyperrealistic. His images may appear perfectly faithful to reality, but their credibility actually arises from a complex constructive system. Massagrande combines the rigor of traditional techniques with personal insights, building a pictorial language grounded in classical skills: from the preparation of panels to the gridding of the surface, from layers of glazing to perspective and a deep knowledge of materials.
On this solid technical foundation, inherited from the great European pictorial tradition, Massagrande develops an original visual language. For the artist, reality does not coincide solely with what is visible, but also includes memories, emotions, and intuitions. His painting, in fact, arises from the meeting between the phenomenal dimension and the inner one, held in a dynamic balance.
“SOGLIE” AS PLACES OF VISION
The title of the exhibition, “Soglie,” reflects the idea underlying each painting on display: rooms that open onto balconies, loggias, courtyards, or landscapes. These are spaces of passage and pause—places to be traversed with the gaze. Architectural elements such as doors, windows, bridges, or terraces mark the boundary between interior and exterior, between near and far, guiding the viewer’s visual movement within the composition.
LIGHT AS A REVELATORY PRINCIPLE
At the heart of Massagrande’s research lies, above all, light. More than the places depicted, it is the quality of light that determines the structure of his paintings. Light becomes the principle that makes experience visible, recalling the ancient idea of truth as aletheia, that is, unveiling—what emerges from concealment. In this sense, painting does not merely reproduce the world, but reveals something that previously remained latent.
STRUCTURE AND PERCEPTION IN INTERIORS
In Massagrande’s paintings, light organizes relationships, distances, and depth, transforming space. In works such as Two Rooms (2021), variations in light guide the gaze from the interiors toward the garden, while architectural elements such as walls, doors, and columns create a complex interplay of patterns and surfaces. In The Floral Curtain (2023), by contrast, a large window structures the image into an irregular grid that alters the perception of space, generating a subtle sense of estrangement.
LANDSCAPES AND VISUAL MEMORY
In more recent landscapes—such as Houses in the Lagoon, The Mill, The Bridge, or Slovenian Village—a highly personal construction of the image emerges. Architecture and volumes organize space into compact and legible forms, revealing a visual memory deeply rooted in the European pictorial tradition. In some works, this dimension openly intertwines with the memory of other artists. In Bougainvillea (2025), for example, Massagrande freely reinterprets an image connected to the painting of David Alfaro Siqueiros, transforming it into a new composition structured by architectural perspectives.
THE “CAPRICCI” OF GREECE
The series Lights of Greece (2022) is perhaps where Massagrande’s ars aedificatoria takes on a more fantastical character. The artist describes these works as “capricci,” in reference to views that combine ruins, real buildings, and imaginary architecture. In these scenes, overlooking the shores of the Aegean, reality and invention merge into landscapes as clear and dreamlike as visions.
PAINTING AS A FORM OF THOUGHT
Ultimately, the strength of Massagrande’s painting lies not so much in the verisimilitude of his images as in their ability to translate thought into visible form. His works construct spaces in which inner experience takes shape, entrusting light and the structure of the image with the task of making visible what originates in the artist’s vision.
