www.matlakas.co.uk
Biography -
Riccardo Matlakas is best known for his multi-talented capacity in different art forms
including performance art, painting, sculpture, and installation.
Matlakas obtained a degree in Sculpture at the University of Fine Arts in Naples and art
studies at Goldsmiths University of London and University of the Arts London (UAL) and
obtained an MA in Social Sculpture at Oxford Brookes University.
Riccardo values the context he works in as the main inspiration for his work, finding
common ground with each culture he connects with. The artist creates cathartic actions and
performances at the forefront of current political, environmental, and spiritual concerns by
digging for the essence of humanity beyond race and custom. The multidisciplinary artist
works also actively with painting, street art, and ceramic mosaics going further into
installation art. Amongst various exhibitions abroad Riccardo Matlakas has performed and
shown his work at the Moscow Biennale of young artists in 2010, Gwangju Biennale in
2014, and Prague Quadrennial and had his work collected by the Museum of Modern Art in
Odesa, Ukraine, and the Museum of Palestine in Cape town, including conspicuous
numbers of collective exhibitions internationally, and several solo exhibitions in Wanju,
South Korea, Sofia, Bulgaria and Ibiza, Spain. Matlakas has taken part in a significant
number of artists' residencies internationally such as in Darat Al Funun, Amman, Jordan;
Municipal gallery in Kharkiv, Ukraine supported by the British Council and the Liverpool
Biennale; Mothership Nyc in New York, Brooklyn, and many others. The artist has also
performed at the DMZ area during the PyeongChang 2018 Cultural Olympiad, the Opening
Gallery in New York, Manhattan, the Territori Performance Art Festival in Ibiza, and many
others. The artist is lately working on a project funded by the European Union towards the
protection of our ocean, in a project called “Art4Sea”. The artist and author published a
book with psychologist Giuliana Attanasio with an introduction by Dr. Alessandro Meluzzi
and participation by artists and authors such as ORLAN, Stelarc, and Sadhguru. The book
is published in both Italian and English with the title: Quarantined Lives, International
Perspectives of Covid-19 in Between Art and Psychology.