Mario Matoković was born in 1985 in Osijek, Croatia. He graduated in 2010 from the Art Academy in Osijek, in the Department of Fine Art, Sub-department of Graphic. He has been a member of the
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Our environment’s regard for the people we meet every day, and their nightly metamorphosis into “searchers” for packaging that they sell the next day, which enables them to maintain their sole existence. Repurchase of packaging for the purpose of graphic print was my initial idea (graphic imprint (one can/packaging) - an imprint of one destiny). Seemingly an ordinary can becomes the focus of my exploration of the medium of graphics, and with further development an installation is born. The work comes as an answer to the systematical obliteration of human dignity where man is forced to “dig” through garbage to survive. I buy off the cans form people who collect them every day, and utilize them as art/graphic/installation. I question whether in this case a can is a matrix or is it Ready-made in the function of a graphic matrix. There is no graphical intervention in the form of etching or engraving on the can/packaging, and they are, as such, untreated, and on the other hand perfectly treated, utilized as graphical matrices for the graphic sheets. During the process of printing of these graphics, two imprints are made. On the top sheet (FABRIANO), a deep imprint is made, as for the bottom paper (newspaper) there is an imprint of high print. The imprint on the bottom (newspaper) paper is included with the matrices, as they are put in small sealed plastic bags - a metaphor for the sealed fates of the “searchers”. The name of the work is connected with the quantity of collected, i.e. imprinted packaging. There is 133 imprints of the packaging in the graphic made by the division of 66.5 (0,5 - half a can) cans. Furthermore, 66.5 cans are worth 33.25 kuna (one can is worth 0.50 kuna) leaving 1 unique imprint in the end.