Vittorio Matino

"The Art section of Hong Kong International Art and Antiques Fair 2009 will feature exceptional works by celebrated artists in a diversity of artistic styles and media. Sundaram Tagore Gallery of New York, Beverly Hills and Hong Kong will show work that encourages a dialogue between the East and West. Featured artists include Hiroshi Senju(Japan), Sohan Qadri (India) and Kim Joon (Korea) along with Susan Weil (USA), Natvar Bhavsar (India)."

"A Hong Kong gallery is taking an upbeat attitude by presenting major names in its exhibitions [...] Even as galleries along the city's arts and antiques hub, Hollywood Road axe show and offer fewer high-priced works to tide over the global credit crunch, Sundaram Tagore continues to showcase major pieces by the artists it represents."

Art historian Sundaram Tagore's doctoral thesis looks at Indian artists' response to European modernisation from the 1940s to 1980s. As a curator, however, his focus is more on the here and now. Hence the title of his gallery's latest group exhibition by 18 international artists, which opens today at the Sundaram Tagore Gallery's Hong Kong branch.

Gallerist Sundaram Tagore says, "Vittorio Matino has a brilliant understanding of color. His trips to the US and Paris in the mid-1970s deepened his knowledge of Color Field School, and he, in turn, extended its language. His work is a unique contribution, and his career is long and deep, spanning half a century."

"...His [Sundaram Tagore] galleries located in New York and Los Angeles, focus on 'a global community of artists, and particularly, on those artists who are engaged in cross-cultural dialogues between East and West.' He asserts, 'We were passionate about thinking globally long before it became fashionable.' So the only mystery is, why has it taken Tagore so long to hit Hong Kong?"

"When it came to choosing where to open his first overseas gallery, Sundaram Tagore, operator of the eponymous US-based gallery, knew it had to be Hong Kong. His experience over the years travelling to the city, which he used as his Asia business base, convinced him that it was the ideal place for his new venture."

"Matino ... paints within the western abstract tradition, using color and the physical act of painting with a spirituality akin to the aesthetics of Eastern civilization."

"For the past decade, Matino has explored the color tradition of India, while continuing to develop a capacity for transforming the limits of our perception off color."

"Dubai is at the crossroads of the east and west, and it is taking charge as one of the great centres of commerce, tourism, and art"