| Remains of a Landscape, mixed media on canvas, 32 in. x 37 in., 2026 |
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| Albino Mattioli
Other Skies
September 9 - October 3
Opening Reception
Wednesday September 9, 2026
6 - 8 p.m. Gallery Hours
Thursday - Sunday
11 - 5 p.m. Please join us Wednesday, September 9th from 6 - 8 p.m. for the opening reception of Rome-based artist Albino Mattioli’s exhibition Other Skies, a series of new paintings, sculptures and works on paper.
Albino Mattioli’s latest show, Other Skies, at Psychic Readings*, draws upon Emily Dickinson’s poem There is Another Sky. The sonnet, addressed to Dickinson’s brother Austin, evokes a spectacular garden beyond the physical world—bright, unblemished, and presenting a vision of a hidden sanctuary where "flowers never fade.” “Into my garden come!” Dickinson commands her brother. Yet, can an idyllic garden such as the one Dickinson portrays ever truly be found? Mattioli’s garden is equally enigmatic: it operates simultaneously as a medieval hortus conclusus, an urban sanctuary, and a metaphor. It is a secret space hovering just beyond human sight, its gates perpetually enclosing some while expelling others. |
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| | A View of the Garden, mixed media on board, 11 in. x 14 in., 2026 |
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| Mattioli’s palette oscillates between the quietude grizzled, Cimmerian grays and the shock of bright, bold color. Fogs and mists seem to hover and settle over the canvas, amplifying an affective anticipation that mirrors the deep conceptual friction between the observer and the observed. Figures emerge from the sediment of the material, producing an uncanny sensation of being watched before the viewer even spots them. These forms assume a primordial energy, echoing the atavistic spirit of cave drawings that render abstract animals and skulls locked in the eternal choreography of the hunt. Mattioli achieves this through a sophisticated layering technique, utilizing frayed, transparent materials that allow ghostlike under-compositions to bleed through to the surface.This tension captures the fragility of the present moment, which is never entirely free from the gaze of the past.
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| | Two Hole Mouse, mixed media, 8.5 in. x 12 in., 2026 |
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| Jaipur, mixed media, 8.5 in. x 12 in., 2026 |
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In her interview with Mattioli, writer Julie Schulte asks: “There is a palpable tension in your work between the abstract, atmospheric fogs and the emergent figure. You previously mentioned that 'art followed you around,' suggesting a practice that has liberated itself from the constraints of any specific material or geography. Yet, your birthplace of Rome continues to exert a profound pull; we discussed how classical art manifests in your work as a series of fractured, classical heads—reappearing motifs that feel simultaneously weighted by history and deeply haunting. How do your architectural shapes and your palette of vibrant, rich hues activate this sense of ghostly appearance?” |
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| You Are Not Like Us, canvas, thread, wire, acrylics, copper, 2025 |
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| Mattioli responds: “I usually don't plan my work. My view of working is different in the sense that working is a part of living; it doesn’t just happen in the studio during certain hours. You have to be like a sponge—absorb everything—which could be dangerous, self-destructive. The ideal condition for the artist is to remain childlike and sensitive to what is occurring in the moment. So I allow the raw materials to guide each work. The appearance and disappearance of any motif is tied to the ephemeral permanence of the present experience. A figure may appear “as a vanishing figure into the mist of time.” |
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| Manual for a Garden #1 (Detail from the Series), paper, typewriter, 5 in. x 8 in., 2026 |
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| Manual for a Garden #2 (Detail from the Series), paper, typewriter, 5 in. x 8 in., 2026 |
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| Framed as a physical travel itinerary, Other Skies transforms the gallery into a mimetic engine that propels viewers through cultural landscapes and apparitions. This immersive environment charts the striking phenomenon of inadvertently "falling into history” a psychological displacement mirrored in Patrick Leigh Fermor’s travelogue A Time of Gifts. There a young traveler encounters immense human warmth and hospitality on the cusp of Europe’s descent into fascism, beautifully capturing a similar layering of time. Fermor notes how, when the familiar landscape vanishes through obscured weather, he finds himself pulled back into ancient timelines:
“The world is muffled in white, motor-roads and telegraph-poles vanish, a few castles appear in the middle distance; everything slips back hundreds of years. The details of the landscape [...] all these stand out dark in isolation against the snow, distinct and momentous.”
Transcending mere spectatorship, Mattioli invites viewers to enact a similar personal odyssey of spatial displacement, vulnerability, memory, and psychological discovery. |
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| Other Skies is on view in the gallery through October 3, 2026. |
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| | The artist Albino Mattioli in front of Psychic Readings*, East Village, New York City, 2026 |
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| Albino Mattioli (b. 1964, Italy) is a Roman-born artist whose multidisciplinary practice is shaped by a lifelong engagement with global transit and cultural immersion. Drawing from extensive periods living in the United States, Africa, and India, where he spent nine years as an international art educator, Mattioli translates cross-cultural experiences into a diverse portfolio of painting, drawing, installation, and murals. Mattioli maintains an active presence in galleries across Europe and the United States, with recent solo presentations at Psychic Readings Gallery in New York and Interno Undici A in Italy. |
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| | | | Psychic Readings* 629 E 6th St New York NY 10009
tel: 212-598-1110
email: psychicreadingsgallery@gmail.com
Gallery Hours
Thursday - Sunday, 11 - 5 PM
and by appointment |
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