The first time I stood before Matteo Casali’s paintings, what I felt was not serenity, but a drifting, unsettled atmosphere, slowly flowing between the familiar and the strange. The figures in his work do not stand firmly within the frame; they seem to have just emerged from another world, not fully entering our space-time. Some turn away, some show a profile, others appear to gaze at you, yet in a way that seems to see through you. They exist within an internal rhythm, not entirely belonging here.

The canvases carry an amorphous emotional sense. Each figure seems to carry fragments of dreams—some unfinished, some just awakened. This drifting uncertainty is precisely what makes Matteo’s work so captivating.

He does not depict a concrete reality, but rather the emergence of emotion and presence. These images require no explanation, yet they draw me back repeatedly, as if awakening some subtle sense, lifting me briefly out of the gravity of reality.

He paints moments often overlooked in daily life. Sometimes the figures look at you, sometimes turn away, yet nearly all are immersed in their own rhythm. There is no narrative, no dramatic action—some wait, some walk, some stand silently. Their presence is not for observation; they exist independently, already there before being seen.

Matteo’s work slows down the act of viewing and makes it gentler. There is no protagonist; the space is not just a backdrop. Each painting feels like a generative atmosphere, a quiet, silent state. Like breathing, like afterglow. Like entering a room before the light is turned on, yet sensing someone has been there.

It reminds me of artists who do not rush to speak—their way of observing the world is more important than what they intend to say. Matteo is such an artist. His paintings whisper; they do not demand attention but quietly await your approach.

He often paints ambiguous spaces: a corner of a room, a street bend, the seaside, a park… The scenes are blurred but the atmosphere is precise. These images feel familiar, though one cannot say why. Perhaps it is not that I have been there, but that I have felt something like it—a certain light, a certain air, still drifting in memory.

His work evokes a subtle, ambiguous resonance—not déjà vu of having been somewhere, but a softer impression: “I feel I have seen this posture, this figure, somewhere before.” Like a prelude to memory, like an unfinished dream.

He does not intend to tell a story, yet the images touch something within you—perhaps an unnoticed emotion, perhaps a glance you once missed. The feeling is subtle but real, so real that you remember it.

Matteo’s color palette is equally restrained: low-saturation greens, grays, ochres, occasionally tinged with purple or pink, like the fading light of dusk. The light in his paintings does not enter from outside; it slowly radiates from the figures and space themselves.

His work reminds me of fleeting figures in the city, ephemeral yet leaving traces. They are not torn and struggling like in Francis Bacon, but they carry a quiet solitude, a willingness to be honestly alone with themselves. Their relationship with space recalls Giorgio Morandi’s still lifes: quietly arranged forms, no drama, yet a natural order and rhythm. I even feel that Matteo’s figures are like Morandi’s still lifes—here in our time, grown with bodies and breath. They exist on the canvas without explanation. They are not symbols, not icons, but proofs of existence, mirrors for the viewer, traces left by time and space.

Matteo’s paintings do not demand understanding. They simply invite you to pause, to look quietly, to feel their warmth.

They never shout, yet they quietly hold me there, lingering just a little longer.