MATTEO BERNASCONI RISONANZE
Matteo Bernasconi
Risonanze
10 July - 3 August
The feeling that remains after a dream.
Illustrated Cover: Assumption after Rubens, Oil on canvas, 137cm by 102cm
Risonanze marks the Melbourne debut of Italian-born, Sydney-based artist Matteo Bernasconi, presenting a body of work that encapsulates the reason and purpose behind his practice as an artist.
Guided by a deep reverence for art history, Bernasconi’s work honours the great masters while challenging the boundaries they navigated. Through his reinterpretations, Bernasconi asks;
“What might these artists have created if they were freed from the constraints of illustration and depiction?”
The Rust after Géricault Oil on canvas, 104cm by 134cm
In these paintings, figures drawn from the language of art history—Rubens, Bellini, Géricault—appear as echoes rather than illustrations. They emerge through layers of memory, imagination, and atmosphere, hovering at the edge of recognition. Art is the act of bringing together what is seen with what is unseen- the visible with the ineffable- on the sole condition that it refers to a deeper meaning that is not shown outright, but quietly
echoed through its form. Bernasconi ponders what remains when we strip away the illustrative, and what it is that truly resonates. This is not art as explanation, but art as revelation—a mirror to our own inner world, a window to what lies just beyond it. In these works, we are reminded that the most profound truths are not always spoken, but sensed.
In Between, Oil on canvas, 80cm by 100cm
Bernasconi skillfully engages our collective consciousness and shared memories by reworking historical and influential artworks, allowing us to see them in a new way. Standing before his interpretations feels like a moment of déjà vu—you sense you’ve encountered the work before, though you certainly haven’t. This is the excitement of
Bernasconi’s Risonanze collection: the chance to draw new meaning from the canon. In the contemporary art world, where the prevailing aim often appears to be provocation through gimmickry that is upheld by superficial concepts, the act of revisiting historical classical paintings becomes a radical gesture. Their beauty is radical.
The Dance, Mixed media on canvas , 92cm by 120cm
Returning to classical art and art history invites us to rediscover the meaning of art, what it once was. We reconnect with art that suggests rather than shouts- art as a window to the transcendental and spiritual. What does Bernasconi mean by ‘spiritual’ in art? A painting does not exhaust its meaning in what you see on the canvas itself, instead it becomes a stimulus into understanding the work more deeply and ultimately looking inwardly. Through this tension (between the seen
and unseen) an artwork becomes an invitation to feel, rather than merely illustrate something or a pretentious concept only made sense through words. This tension is present in some artwork more than others, for example Leonardo’s unfinished paintings and Michelangelo’s unfinished sculptures.
L’incontro after Rubens, Oil on linen, 122cm by 102cm
Their unfinished quality allows the viewer to engage with the work in multiple ways; they are not simple singular illustrations or stories, but layered, open-ended experiences. They possess a universal quality.
Bernasconi’s art, morphing from figuration to abstraction, invites the viewer not just to look, but to stop and truly observe, almost like a form of meditation, where forms and colors become the protagonists instead of the figures. For example, The Raft, when compared to the large scale of the original work that inspired Bernasconi’s take, offers a more intimate experience.
The figures are both present and absent, you enter into the colors, the forms, the textures, rediscovering a totally different reading key. With the original, one needs to stand far to experience the entirety of the piece and what remains dominant is the figuration and the storytelling quality.
This quiet, intuitive approach to painting is inspired by artists such as Kandinsky, who saw art as a portal to the spiritual and the unseen.
Matteo’s practice is less about replicating reality and more about revealing its emotional undercurrents. His canvases are filled not with narratives, but with questions—silent gestures that evoke something beyond reality.
Risonanze is not an exhibition to be merely looked at—it is to be felt. It asks the viewer to engage with intuition as much as intellect, carrying the tension between form and feeling, what is seen and what is not seen. These are not depictions but invitations—thresholds into a space where form dissolves into feeling, where presence and absence blur.
With each piece, Bernasconi asks us to pause and feel what lies beneath the surface.
Ricordo, Oil on board, 52cm by 42cm
