I am here, I protect you.

I guard your walls and the warmth of your home.
I want to prevent that world crossing the threshold of your home.
I watch over you so that you are not short of anything necessary but above all so that the superfluous is never essential for you.

I can offer you this: a controlled strength ready to set into motion.
Decisive, not arrogant.
Determined, not violent.
Impressive, not aggressive.

I will stay with you and watch your world take shape in front of you.

We will end up in different homes, some of us will perhaps cross the sea and end up in places that nobody could ever imagine

We will be a dispersed army, united by The people who have chosen us, who will have been chosen by us

Listen to our silence..
I am here, I protect you.

Extra Moenia, or Flight from the Wall, the series by Matteo everybody knows very well. Muscular figures, bursting out of walls. The flight from the wall series symbolizes his idea of freedom. The flight is limited by nothing at all exept your thoughts. Flight is breaking barriers in pursuit of the unlimited.
Galerie Noordeinde presents
The Summer of the Beetle
a solo exhibition by 

opening 22 january 2012
Symbols and objects of everyday life, familiar memories…
things that would have gradually disappeared from my life
and that I would have noticed and come to love only after
I was aware of the significance of their loss.

Matteo Pugliese

  "I started to work on beetles about thirty years ago, when I was ten years old. I was living on the windswept island of Sardinia; I think it was the summer of 1980, one of those seasons that seem to last forever and only happen in childhood or adolescence.With my cousin Marco, I was ready to face the summer.The great novelty of that summer appeared during oneof the long days at the beach, when we discovered some dung beetles: those harmless little black beetles that transport small balls of dung slowly, but so tenaciously, pushing them along the beach and among the bushes..."

  "I have entrusted these beetles with a few fragments
of those moments that have remained with me along the road. Bits and pieces, symbols, mementos, little amulets
that I have treasured carefully for years, some that I have
rediscovered, and others that I deliberately went out to search for. Tiny items able to open these windows
for a glimpse of the familiar daily life of the past… of special times… of my other existence..."

read the full story....
Contact us:

Galerie Noordeinde
Noordeinde 117
2514 GE Den Haag Netherlands
http://www.galerienoordeinde.com/
info@galerienoordeinde.nl
+31(0)70 3606868
Press

     
Matteo Pugliese was born in Milan in 1969. 

In 1978 his family moved to Sardinia where Matteo lived for the next 12 years. During this time he developed a strong love for drawing and sculpture and continued his art work without any formal education. After finishing his secondary school studies in classics in Cagliari, he returned toMilan to attend university.

In 1995 he was awarded his degree in Modern literature at the University of Milan with a graduation thesis on Art criticism. 
Encouraged by friends, in 2001 he organised and financed his first solo exhibition renting private exhibition space in the centre of Milan. 

Only 18 months later he held his first “official” exhibition in a gallery in Brera,Milan, and after a fewmonths he held a solo show in Brussels.

Today his works are on permanent display in galleries in Italy and major cities throughout the world like Rome, Hong Kong, London, Brussels, Lugano and TheHague. They have been shown at some of the most important Italian and international art fairs such as the Hong Kong Art Fair (Hong Kong), ArtFirst (Bologna), Miart (Milan), Arco (Madrid), and Fiac (Paris).

In recent years his pieces have been sold with considerable success at some of the world’s most prestigious fine art auction houses (Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Pandolfini).

Matteo Pugliese is married with one daughter.
Biography
Extra Moenia
@ work
Matteo making a huge Custodi
The summer of the beetle
Beetles
http://matteopugliese.com/
Introduction
working on Extra Moenia
the making of a beetle
Custodi, or Guardians, the protectors of your home and family
Custodi
I protect you
Encounter with Matteo
Calostema Militiforme Rubra
73 x 40 x 16 cm
ceramic, aluminium, mixed media
Aristobia Rubia Resplendens
73 x 40 x 16 cm
ceramic, aluminium,resin, mixed media
Celedota Telephonica
36 x 20 9 cm
ceramic, bronze ,resin, mixed media
Euchroea Nigra Dentata
73 x 40 x 16 cm
ceramic, bronze, resin, mixed media
Chrysina Vertebrata
36 x 20 x 9 cm
ceremic, bronze
Tragocephala Subbuteina Nobilis
73 x 40 x 16 cm
ceramic, aluminium, resin, mixed media
Matteo Pugliese


On a beautiful summer day I was walking up the famous street leading to the centre of San Gimigniani in Tuscany when my eye caught sight of an intriguing life size sculpture seemingly making it´s path through the wall. I was told this work and others were by a young Milanese sculptor called Matteo Pugliese. As soon as I was back in the Netherlands I contacted him and expressed my wish to expose his work in my gallery in The Hague. It was the first of many exhibitions and since that beginning we have helped distribute his work to clients in all corners of the world.

During the years together I have grown very fond of Matteo and his family. Matteo grows steadily as an artist and man. The sculptures emanating from the wall express his hate of stagnation which he equates to indifference and abdication. He advocates making a journey or even a quest, expressing a wish for change and a desire to reach a new condition to the prejudice of the one that is already known (weather good or bad). Step after step until even the wall can´t restrain it will turn into a flight as a courageous choice. These sculptures were a young artists way of expressing a silent cry he had inside himself for a long time. This cry is often heard by the onlooker who either sympathises or turns away.

Later Matteo´s success as an artist, his new found responsibilities as husband and young father found their expression in the series of sculptures called the guardians, custodi. The sturdy guardians from all parts of the world and cultures started with a samurai. Now there is an eclectic army of expressive custodi which all at first can seem a little frightening but are so attractive in their controlled strength ready to defend the one that chooses it. Matteo made the sculptures determined but not violent with the idea that these are meant to protect the threshold of our home if we let them.

Now that he has turned 40 and his small daughter, at  an age to ask a lot of questions,  Matteo has expressed his stage of life and concerns in yet another surprising concept of sculptures. The beetles are all unique made in a combination of casted bronze or aluminium with glazed terracotta. In each beetle lies a small item from his youth, whether a small plastic soldier or a miniature lotus toy car, they give us a tiny insight in the boy he was, protected by the shield of the beetle.

Madeleine Ekegardh
January 2012

For the whole story by Matteo Pugliese go to http://www.galerienoordeinde.com/News-Detail.cfm?NewsID=69