Matteo Pugliese was born in Milan in 1969. He moved to Sardinia with his family in 1978, during which time he began to experiment with drawing and sculpture. Pugliese went on to attend the University of Milan, where he earned a degree in Modern Literature in 1995 with a thesis on art criticism.

Pugliese financed his first exhibition in 2001, after renting a private space in Milan. Only 18 months later, he had what would be considered his first “official” exhibition at the gallery Il Castello of Brera in Milan, shortly followed by another solo exhibition in Brussels. Since then, his work has been shown internationally, including at galleries in New York, London, Milan, Lugano, Rome, Antwerp, Brussels, St. Mortiz and Hong Kong, as well as at art fairs such as ArtFirst (Bologna), Arco (Madrid), Hong Kong Art Fair (Hong Kong), and Fiac (Paris). Today, the artist lives and works in Milan.

Dragonfly, 2019, pushes the spatial boundaries of sculpture. As characteristic in many of Pugliese’s works, the sculpture interacts with a flat plane, creating the illusion that the figure is moving through the surface, falling into the space that exists beyond. The figure is caught in a moment of extreme dynamism, with a defined and sinewy musculature emphasized by the patina that seems to follow the figure’s contours. The juxtaposition between the inherent stillness of sculpture and the figure’s dynamic form gives a sense of perpetual motion—the figure’s ceaseless motion through the space—heightening the sense of sheer energy. Dragonfly defies the fixedness of sculpture; Pugliese imbues the medium with motion through striking musculature reminiscent of classicism and the interaction between the two- and three-dimensional.