Matteo Mauro presents his newest artwork, Steel in Space, a monumental sculpture that expands his ongoing investigation into material language, scale, and sculptural density. As part of the Matter in Space series, this artwork marks a further evolution in Mauro’s research, shifting from the intimate density of bronze toward a larger than life presence. Like all of Mauro’s sculptural series, they are rooted in the traditions of metal casting/forging and industrial fabrication, the sculpture moves beyond conventional material narratives, transforming steel into a speculative form that oscillates between geology and cosmology.

If bronze captures the memory of transformation, steel projects it into space. In Steel in Space, the material is no longer only a vessel of the past but a structure that asserts itself within the present, expanding outward, occupying volume, and confronting the viewer with its scale. The artwork engages with the language of monumentality, where mass, weight, and surface tension become active forces, shaping a perception that is both physical and conceptual.

Formally, the sculpture draws from the same primordial logic found in Mauro’s bronze artworks, volcanic formations, fractures, and erosive processes, but here these elements are amplified and reconfigured through steel’s industrial precision. Surfaces appear stretched, fractured, and recomposed, creating a dynamic tension between natural morphology and engineered construction. The result is a sculptural body that feels simultaneously excavated and fabricated, as if extracted from both the earth and an imagined, extraterrestrial terrain.

Within Matter in Space, steel introduces a new dimension: scale as experience. The viewer no longer observes the artwork as an object but navigates it as an environment. The sculpture becomes spatial rather than purely formal, inviting movement, proximity, and shifting perspectives. Its presence is assertive, almost gravitational, anchoring itself in space while evoking a sense of expansion beyond it.

In this context, steel functions as a material of projection. Where bronze condenses time, steel extends it, transforming processes of compression and instability into a forward looking, monumental structure. The act of casting and fabrication becomes a way of translating matter into permanence at a different scale, where the memory of transformation is no longer contained, but externalised and amplified.

The artwork exists not as an isolated entity but as part of a broader constellation within Matter in Space. Together, these sculptures articulate a continuum between density and expansion, intimacy and monumentality, grounding and projection. In Steel in Space, Mauro’s practice reaches a new threshold, where material, time, and space converge into a singular, immersive presence.