MATTEO--Video Sculpture for the 21st Century

Artist Matteo on the rooftop of LA's iconic Eastern Columbia Lofts.

L.A. Artist MATTEO Brings Video Sculpture into the 21st Century

By Alex Simon

Bringing a unique blend of cinema, music, and sculpture to create an artistic genre and school very much his own, Canadian artist Matteo’s sculptures and installations are embedded with plasma screens, or projection based displays, presenting inspired and moving video art films. Each innovative piece is visually and conceptually striking as sound and image charge them with dynamic potency. With unique and evolving content and captivating designs, Matteo provides limitless options for architects, designers and their clients. Television is global, art is global. Matteo’s fusion of the two makes his work appealing on an international level. “Essentially the medium of television or film is international, and there are very few places in the world you can go that don’t have TV or cinemas,” Matteo said recently. “Therefore, what I'm putting together is cross-cultural and familiar in terms of time-based presentation of images.”


"Headspace II" Steel, acrylic, enamel, micro DLP projector, IPOD Nano; 72 x 15

Matteo’s work resides in, ‘l’espace entre,’ an interval of existence that resists contextualization though cross-fertilization. Between art and design, between constructed object and fluid light, between static and kinetic, his oeuvre is destabilizing in the best possible sense. Matteo’s tactilely rich and imaginative work elevates the viewer from the quotidian to higher levels. Or as Norman Vincent Peale stated "Imagination is the true magic carpet," and Matteo’s work takes us on a journey from the eternal to the grittiness of the contemporary that mix and mingle through object, image and sound. “I try to weave a consistent thread of visual information in all the films that I make. I use finely tuned, highly stylized imagery that flows as a visually appealing experience. reinforced by music or soundscapes to anchor each particular clip adding a cinematic dimension.” he explains.


"Ben Ali." Australian Lace and Zebra Woods, stainless steel, acrylic 50" LCD Monitor w/DVD player; 90" x 34"

A native of Toronto, Ontario, Matteo relocated to Los Angeles in 1992. Inheriting his love of the moving image from his father, who founded and ran the Cinema Studies Department at The University of Toronto, Matteo’s early artistic roots were in creating large-scale interactive new media sculptures in the Nevada desert for the Burning Man Arts Festivals.

These were hardly Matteo’s first brushes with visual culture. For over twenty years he has been producing, directing and editing music videos, commercials, short films and video art. He has won numerous design awards for his work as an Art Director and Production Designer in television, music video, stage, concert and special events and has created and designed full concept commercial venues, restaurants, offices, furniture and residential interiors. This work imposed on him the importance of fine craftsmanship of production.


"Lord Murphy-Time." An 18x24 stainless steel and glass DVD player sculpture by Matteo.

“The work is grounded in a combination of skills that I have learned in the last 25 years. I wanted to create a multilayered genre of art that had endless options. I use the screen as an electronic canvass. The layers, the audiovisual content, the design of the sculptures that displays this content, converge in unusual, surprising and unsuspecting ways. Visually fusing the imagery with sculpture engages the viewer to “experience” all of this as a whole.”

Matteo with his piece "Headspace II."

“I want to bring the work outside the confines of the traditional gallery, by placing it in settings that are more accessible to the general public and their daily lives such as hospitality based architectural installations."

To fully appreciate Matteo’s artwork, and to get an animated glimmer of its beauty and impact, please view the video demonstrations on his website: www.videosculptures.com. Matteo's gallery is located downtown at 800 S. Spring St. Los Angeles, CA. 90014. For private viewings please call: (213) 909-7046. The gallery will be open for Art Walk on June 11, 2009 from 6 PM to 10 PM.