Chicken Noodle? 4

Salvatore Matteo

28” x 20”

Cut fine art print on wood board, razor blade with signature

In Chicken Noodle? 4, Salvatore Matteo extends his investigation into deconstruction, consumption, and cultural memory by reworking a familiar image associated with everyday ritual and mass culture. Referencing Andy Warhol’s iconic Campbell’s Soup series, Matteo treats the image not as an icon to be reproduced, but as material to be physically consumed, dismantled, and reassembled through process.

Working with a cut fine art print on archival paper, Matteo transforms the photographic surface using a single razor blade. Through repeated incisions, the image is lifted from its original flatness and reshaped into a dimensional, sculptural field. The act of cutting introduces rhythm through repetition and restraint, allowing light and shadow to animate the surface and shift perception as the viewer’s vantage point changes. Photography moves beyond documentation, entering the realm of relief and object.

The work operates at the intersection of Pop Art, Conceptual Art, and post-photographic abstraction. While Warhol elevated the everyday through mechanical repetition, Matteo reverses this logic by reintroducing labor, vulnerability, and individuality into the image. His physical intervention recalls the spatial ruptures of Lucio Fontana, whose slashed canvases challenged the integrity of the picture plane, while also engaging traditions of trompe l’oeil, where illusion and material reality coexist.

The inclusion of the razor blade near the artist’s signature underscores the performative nature of the work. It functions as both tool and artifact, emphasizing the singularity of the process and the irreproducible quality of each piece. The blade marks the moment where image, action, and authorship converge.