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 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.