Press Articles and reviews

- Translation of the article that appeared in Profili d'Artista, Percorsi d'Arte Contemporanea . Edited by Di Mario Napoli. Texts by Elena Colombo and Andrea Rossetti, 2013. Publisher: Edizioni Satura Ass. Culturale.

Mattia Baraldi was born in 1967 in Chiavari, Genoa, where he still lives and works. He specializes as Graphic Designer at the Istituto D'Arte & Messaggio-Municipal School of Art-of Milan; attends a two-year course at the prestigious Scuola Chiavarese del Fumetto-School of Comics, Illustration and Animation-of Chiavari; got his Graduation Diploma after having attended a Course of Painting at the Accademia Ligustica di Belle Arti-Fine Art Academy-in Genoa; and finally follows a Master in Multimedia Communication & Information at the Politecnico-Polytechnic University-of Milan.

Mattia Baraldi's town is deeply connected with its territory-because, in each view it is possible to get a glimpse of a recognizable foreshortening, a particular perspectival cross-ing of lines-but, at the same time, it becomes an idealized space resulting from the cleanliness of the strokes and the brilliance of the colors, gently reminiscent of the local culture. However, this is not a postcard illustration, rather a path connecting the present to the past, with the emphasis on chromatic qualities coming from the Mediterranean: here the density of the pigments, from the brilliance of a shining sun, defines the place of reference from which to depart for the trip. Light is the absolute protagonist in these works, hovering between studies en-plein-air and recalling of memories: this is the real world, which through the refraction of solar rays becomes fantastic and surreal, almost as if Naohisa Inoue's visions had encountered the quick brushstrokes of the Italian produc-tion of Claude Monet. Blue and yellow limpid transparencies replace the purity of a nonexistent white. The amazement of the viewer adds freshness to every phase of the description, even in the cold graphical intersection of bare spots. Behind the surfaces, filled with the summer glow, a careful analysis of the geometrical structures or the entanglement of the urban planimetry is perceptible, and responds to the same mechanism of introspection to be found in Gabriele Basilico's photographs: subjectivity is bound by form. Therefore, even the alleyways of the Ligurian villages seem to open to a new interpretative key, thanks to the curious eye of the viewer, who, walking around, discovers little details. However, artistic fiction allows you to take eccentric shots, zoom-in or out, over the refined simplicity of the stonewalls, or to glide from above over the houses in a blurring and compact architectural horizon turned over the sea, and set in a landscape, which is part of a nostalgic myth. The objectivity of the outline bends to the emotion while showing its transposition, which reveals the secret potential of environments filtered by imagination.

- Download the .PDF in Italian with images:
Via di Canneto il lungo. Genoa, 2013
Oil on canvas 40x30 cm.
Silence Bay. Sestri Levante, 2010
Oil on wood panel, 60x70 cm.
Bastions of Porta Venezia. Milan, 2013
Oil on canvas, 40x30 cm.
In the next page:
Tursi Palace. Genoa, 2013
Oil on canvas, 70x120 cm.

- Translation of the text 'Omaggio di un amico vecchio ad un giovane pittore' di Rino Vaccaro.
A Tribute from an Old Friend to a Young Painter by Rino Vaccaro

A necessary premise: I am not an art critic, nor an art historian, but I love all the painters, sculptors, poets, musicians and so on. Obviously, I do not care about the market value of their works, or about their television audience, or about the number of copies they sold. These are aleatory occurrences, which don't help me to understand the value of the artist and his work of art. I prefer to know the individuals, their human complexity; I am attracted by complicated personalities, but also by the solar, simple and unaffected ones, who communicate the evidence of reality as it appears to them. All the rest is technique: an important component for the production of a concrete material like the artistic object, but not always culturally central.

A seagull hovering in the air makes me think that life exists, I am a direct witness of this, although I could not compose music or paint a picture to express it.

Mattia Baraldi seems attracted by landscapes: in particular the Ligurian ones from the Tigullio coastal territory.

He observes, paints the details with meticulous attention. His works grow slowly because he is as attentive to the whole as to the parts. He seems to want to capture the moments and situations perceived: that particular light on the roofs, those boats or that glimpse of the sea.

Probably, he seems convinced that he is the only one to see the "Armonia mundi", and if not the sole interpreter, certainly an intellectual mediator. But, in every landscape there is an elusive essence that renders the painting unfinished and the painter unsatisfied. As in that aphorism of the philosopher, who had to describe the taste of a peach and, after several attempts, concluded by saying that to understand its exact flavor you needed to taste it!

We are fascinated by Van Gogh's wheat stubbles that capture not only a particular situation-both serene and dramatic-but also a moment of light or a glimpse of reality unveiled by the mediation of the painter.

But isn't it, somewhere, also possible to see the wheat stubbles without knowing how to represent them, being in a position to represent them, or being obliged to represent them? Lucky is the painter, of abstract art too, who is capable of doing it.

Even the petroglyphs engraved in the rocks were motivated by a primitive and eternal desire of fixing a witnessed and lived reality on the stone. It is a little bit like modern photography-born with a compulsive click--but legitimized by the very human desire to take to the stream of time away from an image to be preserved over the time. It is the same spirit that animated poets, painters and musicians in the past, and pushes them today, to express a fragment of the perceived reality, and communicate it to others. The nobility of every artist is based on this event of communication.

How should Mattia Baraldi's painting be assigned a place among the contemporary artistic forms: realism, conceptual art, abstract art. I don't feel there is the need for this, and I'm going to explain why. For example, who can say whether the figure of the blessing priest, in the famous painting "Execution by firing squad" of Goya, corresponds to Realism or if it makes reference to a Conceptual Expression, to such a deep meaning suggested by the artist?

- Translation: L' Eco di Levanto e della Riviera Spezzina. Anno VII n. 75 - May 2010
Extract from the Article titled 'Inaugurated a new Exhibition at Pontecorvo Gallery of Via Garibaldi' by Sonia Rodolfo.

'... Mattia Baraldi impresses with his great capacity to interpret the landscape in its reality, through a careful and meticulous graphic study, inflected in vibrant colors and an inlay of homes capable of attracting the gaze, for an infinite time, bringing out the most evocative detail. Many are the works, executed in oil painting, often on wood panels. In almost all of them, it is possible to recognize the Ligurian background of the author, his ability to grasp the best visual effects that makes this a great region, which wears the mantle of the most intense colors.'

- harley village article
Mattia Baraldi was born in 1967 in Chiavari, where he currently lives and works. He has drawn and cultivated the passion for motorcycles since childhood, and became so good at it that TuttoMoto Magazine regularly published his drawings. At the age of fourteen, as always thanks to TuttoMoto, he won a bicycle by participating in a contest launched by Piaggio. Later, he embarked on a career as a painter of 'classical' landscapes, equipped with brushes and all the rest. But his passion for motorcycles has remained. The Harley remains beyond his financial possibilities. He can paint it though. So, like when he was a child, here he is drawing motorcycles again! Why the Harley? "Well, there is an endless list of answers: it is the original motorcycle, the most sold in the world, the most expensive, the most fascinating, the most portrayed in movies, the most famous, the most of ... THE BEST!"
(in the picture: "Captain America" motorcycles from Easy Rider)