Tonino Mattu is known for his characteristic oil paintings of figures hovering between reality and fiction, executed by using a warm palette dominated by raw or burnt umber and sienna. The Italian artist continuously examines the human figure from a pictorial and socio-historical point of view. Marked by a strong affinity for history, Mattu takes on socio-political issues from the 20th century up to today in the tradition of a wider movement of New European Painting, such as the lingering effects and the collective trauma of the Second World War, colonization, geopolitical conflicts, and a sense of alienation. The source material for Mattu’s works is diverse. Often, the artist takes on archival photographic images and reworks them by removing them from their original context, erasing, fading, or altering certain elements. As a result, a unique tension emerges, using the boundaries and composition lines of the original image as a guideline from which he artistically deviates. 

Aron Barath was born in 1980 in Novi Sad, former Yugoslavia, and lives and works in Budapest, Hungary. The artist did not receive any formal art training, but at the age of 21, he received the prestigious Lenhyel Lajos Prize in Hungary. Since the start of the third decade of the 21st century, the meteoric rise of Barath has become undeniable. He has had exhibitions at Galleri Urbane in Dallas, the United States of America; Circle Culture Gallery in Berlin, Hamburg, and Baden, Germany; CAI Gallery in Kortrijk, Belgium; Suppan Fine Arts in Vienna, Austria; The Office Gallery in Miami, the United States of America; the Promocyjna Gallery in Warsaw, Poland; the Kubik Art Space in Budapest, Hungary; and the Mucsarnok Kunsthalle in Budapest, Hungary—to name just a few. Aron Barath joined the CAI Gallery program in 2021.