Mattia Guarnera-MacCarthy

My practice draws on visual language taken from sports and entertainment as a catalyst to explore and better understand the broader nuances of the everyday human condition; taking the sport out of sporting. Through this process I attempt to address a variety of contemporary themes such as identity, expression, competition, masculinity and stardom. By exploring these ideas I attempt to create a dialogue that both embraces yet transcends our norms and structures. I do so by homing into often overlooked scenes and moments which I find evoke interesting allegorical, ideological and philosophical debates that could otherwise be difficult for me to express.

 

In a lot of my paintings the view point is slightly eerie, as if the figures are under surveillance, making the viewer feel as if they shouldn't be watching what they are being shown. This haze of mystical forbideness is further emphasised by the aesthetics properties of the airbrush which  create a sort of grainy, encrypted, veiled, distance between the viewer and the work. At the same time the familiarity of the imagery as well as the context from which they are taken from juxtaposes this idea of privacy. In a similar way to this, nothing in my work seems set or conclusive, it exists in a state of limbo. I see this as a Buddhist like or Carl Yung-esk reflection of the complex and contradictory state of the human condition.

 

For this reason I see my art as accepting whilst also grappling with parallels such good and evil, pain and glory, digital and real, Clear and vague. Creating an outcome which is free from set impositions and which highlights how nothing in life is black and white.