University at Buffalo (UB)
In Abandon, the artist’s first site-specific installation created for the Lightwell Gallery, Matelli uses weeds to explore metaphor and meaning. The project is deceptively simple, playful, and elegant in its subtlety. Weeds are a particularly apt vehicle for Matelli, since their truth is metaphorical, and derives from relations vested in culture rather than in nature. Matelli is known for work that pushes boundaries: of convention, content and taste, meaning and material.
Tony Matelli holds a BFA from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design and received an MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan in 1995. The artist resides in New York City.
Curated by Lisa Fischman.