Valerio Nicolai

The transformative mixed media works of Italian artist Valerio Nicolai are defined by their contextual experience. Working with various characters, stories, objects and atmospheres, Nicolai crafts elaborate visual narratives featuring clay, taxidermied and living birds, and thick oil on canvas. Nicolai continually probes the boundaries of pictorial space, expanding his installations to envelope the surrounding space in color fields, shape and structure.


Nicolai is an Italian artist who lives and works between Gorizia and Venice and attended the Academy of Fine Arts. In 2011, he was awarded a study grant at the Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation in Venice. He has shown with a number of galleries and institutions including Treti Galaxie, Turin, Italy, Clima Gallery, Milan and in 2015 he was part of SHIT AND DIE, an exhibition produced by Artissima Turin and curated by Maurizio Cattelan.

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