Terry Matassoni

My work has primarily been informed by my observations of the immediate urban environment. I never get tired of walking into the city from my studio, ambling down city lanes, looking at the architecture, new and old and observing people in all their everyday activities. This has provided a rich source of imagery for me to draw upon and has become a dominant focus in my paintings.

At the core of my work is the concept of a view or gaze on an inner/outer world.  Windows are a means by which we observe and are observed by others. They provide visibility from one area to another and act as a threshold between public and private worlds, between exterior and interior lives. They frame vignettes of life: in restaurants, offices and apartments. Though transparent, windows also create both physical and psychological boundaries between places and people. A sense of voyeurism is implicit in my observations of streets, buildings and their inhabitants. So it is the gaze of the artist upon his subject and the voyeuristic gaze of the viewer upon this private world that is integral to my work.

I enjoy playing with the concept of the human desire to look and be looked upon. There is a strong emphasis on the interplay between the public and the private, the interior and exterior and the observer and the observed.

The manner in which people live within our urban environment presents a unique distillation of society. It provides a fascinating insight into the humour and disappointments in the modern human condition, the moments of isolation or togetherness that characterize relationships.

My choice of subject matter is not solely based on the inner city. New surroundings, events and experiences enter the psyche and may eventually become part of a painting.

My travels have given me different motifs to paint. The ornate building facades, balustrade windows, balcony supports and streetlamps of Paris are distinctive to that city. In contrast, but equally as beautiful, are the isolated cypress trees, olive groves and old farmhouses of rural Tuscany. Though drawn from everyday life, my paintings are rarely a recorded observation of a particular scene or event. I am more interested in capturing the atmosphere and feeling of a place. Such phenomena become a response to the world, a visual diary, a way of recording memories.

My paintings are generally developed from thumbnail sketches, many detailed drawings and photographs of people and things of interest, pieced together as one large collage. I use watercolour or gouache to complete more finished studies.  I like to use gouache because of its opacity. This process enables me to resolve my tones with colour. It is generally an organic procedure, open to changes of drawings and compositions, whereby colours and forms collapse into each other allowing a more experimental approach to resolving a work. At this stage I revise the drawings and begin to compose and construct compositions into increasingly cohesive structures.

As well as tonal resolution, I may introduce figures into a work as a way of exploring the subtle interaction of human beings with their environment. Solo figures, couples or groups may be included, not only for compositional reasons,  (balancing colour and shape, creating rhythm) but also for the narrative possibilities they represent. In short, there are numerous questions to explore and resolve when working on a painting.

I am still captivated by what the medium of oil paint offers an artist. l never tire of experimenting with the possibilities of what  oil paint can do: using it opaquely, alla prima (wet in wet) or using  it transparently,  putting down layer upon layer as in multiple glazes. This helps to harmonise the composition and to achieve a greater depth of colour, which would not be possible otherwise.

When a painting is in progress, the process has its own rules and l may soon depart from the visual reference that first inspired me. The final paintings often become careful constructions of images taken from real life and imagination where space and perspective are often manipulated for the purposes of composition and narrative intent.

Each medium has its own intrinsic beauty and quality.  I am also fascinated by the different effects one can achieve by working in a diverse range of media: oils, gouache, watercolour and lithography.

The process can be slow at times. So, in addition to this way of working, l often go out en -plein air painting with a group of artists. The idea is to observe subject matter, capture what is in view and complete a work in one session. It is a challenging experience and a valuable skill to acquire.

Terry Matassoni is represented by Australian Galleries, Sydney and Melbourne.
www.australiangalleries.com.au

Images courtesy the artist and Australian Galleries, Sydney and Melbourne.