About Nico Lai

I began painting in 1999. I’m interested about expressionist representation. I don’t like abstract art too much neither conceptual art forms, but I respect it. In my opinion the idea has not to prevail and cancel the form completely. I have always looked at the great artists: Tiziano, Velazquez, Caravaggio above all. Delacroix, Picasso and Bacon, just to mention a few. I know it could seem as a presumptuous act, but if you look at the great artists you can hope to become great too, otherwise you’ll remain little. What’s my mission as an artist? To tell something new, maybe not. They have told and done everything at the best. In the era of art as transvaluation of the beauty, I’d like to give back to the figurative painting a role of expression of reality not separated from the expression of beauty, better if in a grotesque tone, which is my artistic mark. A series of paintings of mine is entitled “the vanity of the absence”: the idea of the business of art that eats itself. The professionals of vernissage always present at the exhibits showing themselves off, while pouncing on the buffet. The art neglected by the same world that exhibits it. The only salvation is that art comes into play consciously, mocking the event that should creates it. The same art must run the show, not be ruled by it. This can be a new idea of painting, able to debunk rules without stopping being form. Without dissolving itself in an incomprehensible expression. When art needs to be explained, something is wrong. It has to come back to its past to be young again.