About
Bio
Matteo Bernasconi is a Sydney-based portrait and figurative artist. Born in Italy, Bernasconi trained as an architect before embarking on a full-time career as a professional artist after making Australia his home in 2013. His work has been primarily exhibited in Italy, Spain, and Australia, and is held in private collections all over the world.
Bernasconi has been a finalist of several major art awards including the Kilgour Prize, The Shirley Hannan National Portrait Award, the Naked & Nude Art Prize, the Percival and the Mosman Art Prize.
Bernasconi’s painterly, sensual works take inspiration from the human condition, offering moments of reflection on feelings, thoughts, and ideas that are normally brushed off in everyday life or deemed taboo. Interested in the range and extremes of emotion, Bernasconi also draws on the thinking of great philosophers and artists like Franz Kafka, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Lucien Freud.
Bernasconi’s most recent solo exhibition, The Cure, explored the importance of human connection and the far-reaching impacts that COVID-19
had on our relationships and communities.
Poised between stillness and movement, serenity, and dynamism, Bernasconi’s works are exquisite visual provocations, posing questions to the viewer about the human condition.
Bernasconi’s work is available to view at Peach Black Gallery, 126 Abercrombie Street, Chippendale, Sydney.
Recent Art Awards
– The Fisher’s Ghost Art Award, Campbelltown Arts Centre. 2022, Finalist.
– Into the Light Art Prize, Whitewall Art Projects, 2022, Finalist.
– Bluethumb, 2022, Finalist.
– The Percival, Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, QLD, 2022. Finalist.
– The Kilgour Prize, Newcastle Art Gallery, 2021, Finalist.
– The Fisher’s Ghost Art Award, Campbelltown Arts Centre. 2021, Finalist.
– Into the Light Art Prize, Whitewall Art Projects, 2021, Finalist.
– McClelland Contemporary Watercolour Award, Splash, McClelland Park Gallery, VIC. 2021, Finalist.
– The Fisher’s Ghost Art Award, Campbelltown Arts Centre. 2020, Finalist.
– Shirley Hannan National Portrait Award, Bega Regional Gallery, 2020. (Highly Commended).
– The Percival, Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, QLD, 2020. Finalist.
– Mosman Art Prize, Mosman Art Gallery, 2019. Finalist.
– The Fisher’s Ghost Art Award, Campbelltown Arts Centre. 2019, Finalist.
– Naked & Nude Art Prize, Taree Regional Art Gallery, 2019. Finalist.
– Shirley Hannan National Portrait Award, Bega Regional Gallery, 2018. Finalist.
Artist Statement
My paintings are visual provocations, posing questions to the viewer about the human condition and the spectrum and extremes of human emotion. They offer moments of reflection on feelings, thoughts, and ideas that are normally brushed off, swept under the rug, classed as unseemly or beyond the bounds of the polite or the acceptable. I’m drawn to our animal urges and reactions, and the influence of an individual’s environment on their behaviour.
Influenced by the people around me, many of my paintings are populated with subjects near and dear to me. I’m passionate about capturing a subject’s energy, not just their appearance – painting is a way for me to understand someone more deeply, to see them more clearly, to bring them closer. I aim to unveil something usually unseen about the subject, something which is shadowy or hidden in the persona or attitudes they adopt as they navigate daily life. Threaded throughout my work is this interest in the duality of man.
When I paint, I embrace the unpredictable qualities of the medium – painting is a delicate dance of chance and intervention. I might direct a painting – I never impose: leaving the door open for spontaneity is what allows the medium to really come into its own. I claim no specific method or technique. Rather, each work demands of me a specific approach that befits the particular energy of a subject.
Art is about exploration, evolution, and a lot of risk-taking. I believe in forgetting everything you learned yesterday to discover something new and valuable in the present. A great painting is often assembled through mistakes that exist in harmony with each other – my challenge is to give them form and shape.
I offer up avenues for reflection and embrace uncertainty and wonder in my work.
Publications and media
SBS Interview Australian Broadcaster AU
Oz Arts Magazine n21 Interview Magazine AU
BlueBee Magazine n2 Interview Magazine, London, UK
Broadsheet Article Online Magazine AU
Art Guide Article Magazine AU
Art Almanac Article Magazine AU
Art Edit Article Magazine AU
Inner West Courier Article Newspaper AU
The Brag Article Magazine AU
Concrete Playground Article Online Magazine AU
Art Shows
Australia
– The Fisher’s Ghost Art Award, Campbelltown Arts Centre. 2020, 31 Oct – 11 Dec.
– Shirley Hannan National Portrait Award, Bega Regional Gallery, 2020. August 2020
– The Percival, Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, 2020. Finalist. July 2020
-The Homo Sapiens, Solo show, Peach Black Gallery, Art Month Sydney, Mar-May 2020
– The Fisher’s Ghost Art Prize, Campbelltown Arts Centre, 26 Oct-Dec 2019
– Summer Show, Group show, Peach Black Gallery, Sydney, November 2019
– Mosman Art Prize, Mosman Art Gallery, 11 Sep – 26 Oct, 2019
– Naked & Nude Art Prize, Manning Regional Art Gallery, 7 Sep – 13 Oct 2019
– Metamorphosis, Solo show, Peach Black Gallery, Sydney, Mar-May 2019
– Summer Show, Peach Black Gallery, Sydney, February 2019
– Shirley Hannan National Portrait Award, Bega Regional Gallery, Oct-Dec 2018
– The Other Art fair by Saatchi Art, Australian Technology Park, Sydney March 2018
– The Other Art fair by Saatchi Art, Australian Technology Park, Sydney October 2017
– Flesh in Light, Gauge Gallery, Solo exhibition, Sydney. Nov 2016
– Sydney Fringe Festival, Tech Gallery, Sydney. Sep 2016
– Retrospective, Solo exhibition, Myo and Co, Mosman, Mar 2015
– ‘The Art of Cadencia’, Solo exhibition. Alpha Gallery, Newtown, September 2015
– ‘New paintings’ Solo exhibition, Black Penny, Aug 2015
– Artshine Gallery, group exhibition Sep 2015
– The Makery Art, New works, Solo, Oxford street, Darlinghurst.
– ‘Reflections’, De Moulin Gallery, Annandale, Jan 2015
Europe
– TianQi, La Bellezza, Milano, Italy, October 2012.
– Rocca Paolina, Expo In Viaggio, Perugia, Italy, July 2012.
– Gallery Rennella Maxo, c/ Portal Nou 19, Barcelona, Spain, December 2011.
– Artes sin fronteras, portal del angel, corte Ingles, Barcelona, Spain. Sep 2011.
– Expo dip, portal del angel, corte Ingles, Barcelona, Spain, April 2011.
– Gallery Paspartu. c/verdi, Barcelolna, Spain, July 2010.
