Die Verwindung

Nicola Samorì was born in Forlì in 1977 and lives and works in Bagnacavallo near Ravenna, Italy. He attended the Accademia di Belle Arti in Bologna and was awarded the diploma in 2004. His first exhibitions included Dei Miti Memorie at the Central TAFE Gallery in Perth (2003); Sine die at the Museo d’Arte Contemporanea in Gibellina (2007); Arte Italiana 1968-2007. Pittura at the Palazzo Reale in Milan; Not so private. With My Tongue in My Cheek at the Villa delle Rose in Bologna (2008).
In 2010, he began to use a technique of scraping the painted surface. The form that is essentially turned inside in this way out is revealed in all of its freshness and brutality, like torn off skin. This process is clearly visible in two exhibitions from 2011: Imaginifragus at the Christian Ehrentraut Gallery in Berlin and Baroque at the LARMgalleri in Copenhagen. A period of work between 2010 – 2012 resulted in Fegefeuer, his first museum exhibition abroad, at the Kunsthalle in Tübingen (September – December 2012). January 2013 saw the artist’s first solo exhibition at the Galleria Emilio Mazzoli in Modena, Die Verwinding, of which curator Alberto Zanchetta wrote that “the artist ended up chastising what he created, thus bringing about the inevitable and undeniable assassination of painting.” His second solo exhibition took place at the Christian Ehrentraut Gallery in November of the same year: Guarigione dell’Ossesso is a series of images that captures the disillusionment and the ability of the possessed/artist to cast aside the blind faith that controls his actions. In 2014, solo and group exhibitions followed at the Schauwerk in Sindelfingen, the MAC in Lissone, the Kunsthalle in Kiel, and in Palladio’s Palazzo Chiericati in Vicenza. The following year, the artist was selected to represent Italy at the 56th edition of the Venice Biennale. The same year, he participated in the exhibition Gare du Nord at the Anatomical Theater in Amsterdam and in the Gare du Sud at the Anatomical Theater of the Archiginnasio of Bologna, and the TRAFO Center for Contemporary Art of Szczecin dedicated an extensive solo show to him. In 2016, after his first solo exhibition at the Monitor Gallery in Rome, Gallery EIGEN+ART presented a solo show at its location in Leipzig; this was followed by his participation in the 16th Quadrennial of Rome.
Samorì’s artistic career is characterized by an attempt to challenge forms derived from the history of Western culture, the dense and repetitive expressions that inhabit, at times unwittingly, our consciousness. Here, the opening up of the depicted body and of the pictorial surface are portrayed seamlessly and reinforces the feeling that the birth of a new work always entails the passing away of an old one.