Anthony Mastromatteo

"Is NOT" 2023, post-modern trompe l'oeil oil painting

2023

"Lovely Mary Jane" is a Post-Modern painting inspired by The Bluest Eye by Toni Morison. Lovely Mary Jane is a candy wrapper, taped to a blue wall. It’s trash, glorified. But this is not a political statement about commercialism or recycling. This painting was inspired by one of the top 10 banned books across the country, Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye” which is about a young black girl who wishes she had blue eyes, an envy shaped from her love of her favorite candy, Mary Jane. It’s a heartbreaking notion caused by an ideal of beauty perpetuated by a marketing campaign for a sweet treat. Classical painting also hails a certain ideal of beauty… and one wouldn’t usually find something as insignificant as a candy wrapper as the focal point of their pièce de résistance. However, Mastromatteo is asking us to see that here is power in idealization, especially in something so seemingly throwaway. He’s prodding us to be more aware…to make people aware of the significance of the seemingly insignificant. The one power an artist possesses is that of forcing the viewer to look at something of his choosing…and in this case he’s asking us to look at something that may be garbage. Consider Maurizio Cattelan, whom in 2019 taped a banana to the wall with duct tape, and it later sold for $120,000…art forces the viewer to consider something that everyone is telling you to look at. Mastromatteo’s candy wrapper is taped up to the wall in a similar fashion as Cattelan’s banana…if we look long enough at the tape, we’ll notice it’s resemblance to the “not-equal” sign...

One of the most confounding paintings in this exhibition is “The Painting, As Seen by the Wall”. Mastromatteo depicts a bare canvas, framed in reverse, turned-around. He presents the...

"White Picket Fence (Aspirational Memoir)" is inspired by Toni Morison's The Bluest Eye. The focal point is a bright green square, encased with a picket- fence made of white tape. I...

In the trompe l'oeil panel painting, "Wonder, or the Plane of the Invisible," a comic cut-out of Wonder Woman sits between two spatial planes—the top, very flat plane is cut out in the shape of a plane as a play Wonder Woman's famous "Invisible Plane." The silly way the comic book character would sit in an imaginary seat flying through the air would force the artist to wonder, “how do you represent an invisible plane”. Here, we see a bright blue canvas, sprinkled with glittery paillettes; an outline of an airplane beneath an outline of the word “SKY”, an infantile depiction of the sun made of masking tape, and finally, the hero, Wonder Woman, her comic clipping taped onto the invisible plane. A very believable, naturalist blue sky with puffy white clouds is visible through the letters and the invisible airplane. It feels like we can reach into the invisible plane to find the natural world…yet atop the plane is an old cartoon of the first female superhero. She overlaps the realistic atmosphere, and even casts a shadow onto it. The planet’s orbit is dedicated to the sun, and all living things need the light to survive…yet this most important element is made up of a crude array of tape strips, asymmetrical, and even torn in-half. This sun refers back to Pablo Picasso’s sun...

Darius Yektai's "White Tulips" is a large-scale, layered, oil on resin, on canvas painting. White Tulips is archetypal in all but scale. Yektai’s stateme...

Darius Yektai's "Large Tulips, Yellow Table" is a large-scale, multi-layered, oil on linen painting. Dimensions are 6 ft tall x 12 ft wide. Painting is...

Complex and masterfully thought out the composition of rifle, gun shells, target shapes, and buck shots. Most likely done for a ad or men's magazine. Signed lower right Atherton. Housed in a rustic House of Heydenryk frame...

Vintage American modernist abstract oil painting by Mark DiVincenzo. Oil on canvas, circa 2005. Signed verso. Unframed.

FRANCISCO BORES Spanish, 1898 - 1972 STILL LIFE OF FRUITS signed "Borès 45´" (lower right) oil on cardboard 15-3/4 x 19-3/4 (40 x 50 cm.) framed: 18-1/4 x 22-1/8 inches (46 x 56 cm.) PROVENANCE Private French Collector Francisco Bores López (Madrid, May 5, 1898 - Paris, May 10, 1972) was a Spanish painter of the so-called New School of Paris. His artistic training originated both in the Cecilio Pla painting academy, where he met Pancho Cossío, Manuel Ángeles Ortiz or Joaquín Peinado...

'Still Life with Fruit', oil on board (1968), by Juliane Solignac. An engaging yet unusual artwork with vibrant colours, thickly applied with a painting knife. Nonetheless, through the thick paint there is an unfinished quality to the work leaving the impression that the raw canvas - or board in this case - is revealed. Some of the colour seems to have been scored on to the work with an artist's knife leaving lines and creating angles as in a cubist painting. There are layers of paint with no evident brush strokes. One may believe in this instance, Madame Solignac used this technique to create a visual effect which would deliberately have upset traditionalists. Be reminded that the Impressionists were criticised for creating patchy, incomplete works because there were strong notions about the correct way to paint in those days. Picasso once said, 'To finish a work is to kill it.' It is unsure how Mme Solignac would have felt about that. Regardless of this conjecture, the painting is colourful, compelling and rewards the viewer with a curious interest. The work is in fair vintage condition, newly framed with a linen slip. It is signed: 'Julian Solignac 68'. About the Artist: Juliane Solignac (born 1904). Regrettably, there is not much information available about the artist (including what year she may have died). She is referenced as a resident artist in Montmartre in the 1930s, one of only a handful of women in an otherwise sea of male names. In addition, Solignac is mentioned in both French and Dutch references as a creator of fabrics. These may have been more artistic 'tapis' which are hung on the wall like a painting. A Dutch museum references having one of her designs in their collection. Here is a quote from the magazine, 'COTE', Edition Nº 9 (March 2009): "Until 20 April, Pierre Frey is exhibiting 50 printed fabric works from their own collection dating from 1936 to today. Most were produced in liaison with artists like Jean Chatanay, Irène Rohr, Juliane Solignac, Rieffel Anossof, Janine Janet...

Highly Decorative, Abstract Oil Painting, Still Life with Honeydew Melons. The painting was most likely made in the USA. (See reverse side, manufacturer of the cardboard). Signed. U...

Cheerful bouquet Oil on cardboard, 31.5x22 cm