Nicola Leoni


Nicola Leoni was born in 1971 in Brescia near Milan where he works. Graduate in Art History at Ca` Foscari University in Venice. He started off by painting in the 80`s.

Nicola Leoni’s works are a representation of characters between cartoon and a surreal world; they are set in a motionless daily life, without relationship with people around, trivialized by media and overvaluation of mind as opposed to emotions. In his artistic production, the artist represents his characters in aseptic architectures, where the human presence fits mechanically in refined neo baroque perspectives. The characters’ gaze, in artist expression, contacts cynically one’s double: “We ourselves” who are looking at the paint. This is a result from scenic arrangement, like theatre scenery, which absorbs the viewer also with bright colouring. The sceneries show moments of daily life, fixed in complex images to decode. A strange established reality joins the observer in the painting, where the human being plays the starring role but without a soul saving ideology. Pop colour mixed together a poetic language gives birth to hypnotic and energy-giving paintings, with a perfect line, invading the environment and catching the observer in a positive manner. “It goes the way of the world” is the ironical saying of Nicola’s works which, with changing of the characters, point out the difficulty of changing our believes.