Nicola Verlato

Nicola Verlato "In God We Trust", Courtesy of the artist
Nicola Verlato "In God We Trust", Courtesy of the artist

Nicola was born in Verona, Italy on the 19th of February 1965. He started to paint about the age of 7, and to sell his paintings about 9. His artistic education has been quite unorthodox, he consider himself almost self thought, however, from 9 to 14 ,he spent every summer at the studio of a monk-painter ( Fra' Terenzio) in the monastery nearby his village in northeast Italy, he consider that the place where he learned how to drawing in the academic style.

 

His first serious show was at the age of 15 in the town hall of Lonigo, a 3 person show in collaboration with other 2 artists of the area. Nicola has been also trained in classical music from the age of 9 ( classic guitar, Lute, piano and composition) at the conservatory in Verona, later, he drove his attention toward rock music playing electric guitar, bass, sinths, composing song, jingles and soundtracks for documentaries. He also studied architecture at the university of Venice where he lived for almost 13 years painting portraits and allegorical scenes for the local aristocracy and the affluent foreigners living in that city. During this period in Venice he worked on almost everything that was connected with drawing: stage design, temporary decorations, illustrations, comics, storyboard etc. Around 28 he started to be interested in contemporary art, and, consequentially, to show in numerous gallery in Italy and abroad in solo and group shows.

 

After spending 7 years in Milan, where he created his well grounded notoriety in Italy, in 2004 decided to move to NY city. In these last years he showed principally in NY city and in various galleries and museum around the States, Italy and Norway, but also in India as well as Germany, Holland and other Europen countries. He participated with an installation of paintings and sculptures as a representative of the Italian Pavillion at the 2009 Venice Biennale. Since 2011 Nicola Verlato lives and works in Los Angeles.

 

Nicola’s work in the art books „Painting now“ and „The Figure“

In Painting Now, renowned critic and art historian Suzanne Hudson offers an intelligent and original survey of contemporary painting—a critical snapshot that brings together more than 200 artists from around the world whose work is defining the ideas and aesthetics that characterize the painting of our time. 

Hudson’s rigorous inquiry takes shape through the analysis of a range of internationally renowned painters, alongside reproductions of their key works to illustrate the concepts being discussed. These luminaries include beside Nicola Verlato, Franz Ackermann, Michaël Borremans, Chuck Close, Angela de la Cruz, Subodh Gupta, Julie Mehretu, Vik Muniz, Takashi Murakami, Elizabeth Peyton, Wilhelm Sasnal, Luc Tuymans, Zhang Xiaogang, and many others.

 

 

THE FIGURE features outstanding examples of contemporary figurative art by leading and established artists -- Jenny Saville,Eric Fischl, Will Cotton, Jerome Witkin, Hilary Harkness, Mark Greenwold, Eric White, Margaret Bowland and others -- alongside emerging talents. Topical essays by distinguished critics, painters and sculptors along with "artist methodologies" by Trenton Doyle Hancock, Richard Phillips,  Rona Pondick,  Steven Assael, F. Scott Hess, Alex Kanevsky, Alyssa Monks, Steve Mumford, Scott Noel, Natalie Frank, Anne Harris, Andrew Raftery, Nicola Verlato and others, provide diverse historical contexts for the volume's nearly 170 artworks. The evolution of techniques -- from classical cast drawing, perspective, and the camera obscura to the use of photography, Photoshop, and 3D-modeling -- and changing cultural conditions from antiquity to cyberspace are examined, and the use of old and new techniques in contemporary figurative art described. Underscoring the art of the figure's enduring appeal and the pedagogy of the New York Academy of Art, THE FIGURE is essential to anyone interested in both tradition and progress in figure-based art, from students to professionals and collectors.