Matteo Massagrande: suspended interiors between memory and presence
Matteo Massagrande is one of the leading figures of the new Italian figurative art. In his paintings, he portrays interior spaces filled with distant echoes, forgotten voices, memories, and nostalgia—places suspended between shadows and mist, inhabited by a past that refuses to be forgotten.
His interiors appear abandoned and silent, yet they are animated by a single, true protagonist: light. A soft, hazy, dusty, and floating light that at times bursts forcefully through large windows opening onto vast spring gardens, and at other times gently filters through cracks and narrow openings.
The art of Matteo Massagrande
In Massagrande’s work, light does not merely illuminate space—it inhabits it, transforming emptiness into an intense and vivid presence. Through light, absence becomes a creative condition rather than a lack.
As the artist states: “Absence is not the opposite of presence, but rather a place without disturbance or distraction. A fundamental condition for discovering hidden essence. A present moment in which thought can reach its greatest strength: creation.”
His interiors thus become mental and contemplative spaces, where time seems suspended and painting turns into an intimate, meditative experience.
Who is Matteo Massagrande
Matteo Massagrande was born in Padua in 1959. He began exhibiting at a very young age, starting in 1973 with group exhibitions and competitions throughout Italy, quickly receiving significant recognition. Alongside his painting practice, he developed an important career in graphic art beginning in 1974, participating in numerous prestigious group exhibitions.
Some of his prints are part of the collection of the Department of Prints and Drawings at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. He has held over one hundred solo exhibitions in Italy and abroad, and his works are included in museums, churches, and public and private collections.
Among his recent exhibitions are the solo show Canto dolente d’amore (Van Gogh’s Last Day) at the Basilica Palladiana in Vicenza, presented within the major exhibition Van Gogh. Between Wheat and Sky (2017), and In My Room: Artists Paint the Interior 1950–NOW at The Fralin Museum of Art, University of Virginia, Charlottesville (USA, 2018).
He regularly participates in major art fairs in Italy and internationally.
He currently lives and works between Padua and Hajós, Hungary.
© Portrait photo Simona Poncia
