No Freedom Painting

Women as symbolic universes that contain the strength and fierceness of life. Andrea Nanì was born in Modica(1993), Sicily, and since he was very young he deeply loved drawing, so much so that he dedicated every moment of his free time to it. During his art history studies he was deeply impressed by surrealism and began to experiment with graphite pencil and pastel colors looking for a different representation of reality, one that is capable of realistically and analytically portray subjects like the hyperrealism but at the same time is able to represent emotions and life experiences through signs and symbols. He began to exhibit his art in 2015 at the “Ritratti” art show that was hosted in Rome at the “complesso dei Dioscuri”, after the first exhibition more followed, a few of the most important ones include the first personal one in Modica in 2017 and also “Omaggio a Frida” in 2019 that was hosted both at Eskimo in Florence and at the Italian cultural institute in Mexico City; in 2020 he displayed his art in Venezia-Mestre at the “Centro Culturale Candiani” as a Finalist of the Mestre pittura contest and during the same year he won the “#xppenvlogchallenge” competition in Japan. In 2021 he got fifth place in the “premio internazionale Michelangelo Buonarroti”. Andrea Nanì’s art main theme is women, their extraordinary expressivity, their unique combination of strength and frailty, their courage in facing hardships, and sometimes even the pain of violence and abuse. The artist’s works are not simple portraits but instead they should be considered almost like allegoric images with a unique theme that is very close to surrealism and magic realism, in which magic elements blend perfectly with the realistic subject of the painting. The artist’s technique portrays the woman close-up with a photographic focus on the face and bust, because they are the best at representing the subject’s soul through the features of the face and marks of past experiences on the body, in which symbols flourish and new spaces open. Some paintings are rich of multiple symbols like wings too small to fly, body parts that change into intense and delicate flowers which can be crushed in an instant, scars that everyone tries to mend but they still leave a permanent mark, or that sometimes can be healed by symbolically putting together pieces of yourself with gold dust lacquer.