Matteo Montani

Unmooring

2023

Matteo Montani was born in Rome in 1972. Following his classical studies in Rome, he attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Urbino and Rome, graduating in 1997 with a thesis on the expressive function of the colour blue. His oil works on sandpaper refer back to rarefied and precarious mental landscapes, suspended between a context of meditative intimacy and apparitions articulated in a revealing dimension. This revelation leads back to the landscape as well as to the condition of man since it is always in a direct relationship with the epiphany of vision. His exhibition experience has seen him collaborate in a continuous and privileged way with Fabio Sargentini’s gallery L’Attico (2005/2017), as well as exhibit with other established galleries like Marilena Bonomo in Bari, Sergio Casoli in Milan, Valentina Bonomo in Rome, Otto Gallery in Bologna, Kalfayan Gallerie in Athens, Luca Tommasi Arte Contemporanea in Milan and Nicola Pedana in Caserta. In 2000 he was awarded the XL Premio Suzzara, in 2008 he participated in the Rome Quadriennale and held his first museum solo show at the MAR in Ravenna. His first solo show abroad was in 2011, at the Museum Am Dom in Wurzburg, Germany, where one of his large works is displayed in the cathedral. He exhibited in New York in 2010 at Casa Italyana Zerilli Marimó and in 2016, at the Elkon Gallery. In 2015, following his solo show Andarsene at the Museo Andersen in Rome, the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art (GNAM) in Rome acquired one of his experimental works: a sculpture that melts down and becomes a two-dimensional work. His works can be found in renowned collections such as the Artefiera Collection in Bologna, Vatican Museums, the Unicredit Collection and the Vaf Collection, as well as in significant private collections in Europe and the United States.