© Matteo Rosa – Surgere

Description

At the core of Matteo Rosa’s practice is an interest in interconnectedness – the play  

between form and formlessness, transience and timelessness, imagination and awareness. He explores art’s potential to restore forgotten or neglected aspects of the self, at a time when we are exposed to the largest amount of external information in history. Nature and its contemplation are a recurrent theme, pointing back to the viewer’s inner stillness. Rosa employs various media, from drawing and painting to photography, video, text and installation.  

The photographic work Surgere (2023) depicts a cluster of trees and shrubs outlined against the sky, reflected in the water of a mountain stream. It was taken during an excursion in a remote valley of pristine beauty, following a prolonged period of relative isolation within the city’s confines – a rare moment of rejoicing and reconnection. Tiny ripples dance across the surface, causing the image to tremble, pointing to the fragility and ephemerality of perceived existence. The title, Surgere, is a Latin verb meaning ‘to arise, come into being’, from which the English word ‘source’ originally stems.