Thomas Mazzarella

Thomas Mazzarella, °1983, Charleroi, Belgium

Thomas Mazzarella is a young man of few words. He lets his paintings do the talking. They tell snippets of stories in the form of simplified pictures with a burlesque sense of humour. They depict a pandemonium of strippers and bikers, super heroes and simple bystanders who rub shoulders in an urban microcosm programmed like a video game. The tone used by the artist is that of a playful youngster for whom reality is subordinate to imagination. One could say his little fables show a certain kinship with Pieter Bruegel's genre scenes, a kind of omniscient perspective, a bird's-eye view, allowing us to take in the world in a single glance. Just like with the Flemish master, these little scenes bustling with life function as mysterious parables. The picture is made in such a way that the viewer feels as if he steps into a dream, in color. (Septembre Tiberghien)