Tony Matelli
It might be more accurate to talk about my work within the tradition of black humor, which has so many contradictory qualities but almost always results in an empathetic connection to the main subject.
Tony Matelli
There is a subdued anger to much of Tony Matelli’s (1971, United States) splendidly crafted work. It doesn’t rage and flail about with swinging fists but takes instead, a single idea, a metaphor, a sensation, sharpens it, and slowly applies it to the viewer’s mind. The tip of this penetrative tool is often tempered with humor, a sense of the absurd, since to cause someone to laugh is to disarm them to an extent. Once the laugh subsides, however, what one becomes conscious of is an intuitive, yet finely tuned sense of the world’s incongruities; and the beauty of a willful act of defiance.
