Claudio Nalerio

I have always been drawn to what lingers beneath the surface—what is seen and unseen, what time reveals and conceals. The sea, ever-changing and relentless, shaped my earliest understandings of the world. From the windswept shores of Montevideo to the vast Pacific, I have watched how water wears away even the strongest structures, how it carves absence into presence. In my work, I try to capture that quiet, unstoppable transformation.

The walls, doors, and windows that appear in my paintings are not just structures; they are thresholds—portals between past and present, between ourselves and others, between what we hold onto and what slips away. The textured, worn surfaces I build carry the weight of time, evoking places we may have never been yet somehow recognize. They remind us that decay is not only loss but also a testament to what has endured.

I return again and again to the human form—not just as an individual presence, but in relation to another. Figures reach toward each other, stand in quiet proximity, or seem to hover on the edge of connection. There is something unspoken in the space between them—an echo of love, of longing, of the invisible threads that bind us together or keep us just out of reach.

And yet, life is ...

Self-taught

The Drawing Room SEA 12/3/22-1/15/2023: San Francisco, CA
The Kid We Once Were solo exhibition at Neyborly 4/19/2018: Berkeley, CA