NICO AMORTEGUI – PAINTER
BIO
ROCINANTE
CANVAS, MIXED MEDIA
48'X72'
2014
"BELIEVE"
ROCINANTE
CARDBOARD MIXED MEDIA
48'X48'X24
2015
"Never Stop Dreaming"
Nico Says:In the beginning, I aimed to depict the perpetually changing direction of my home country – Colombia – a country where in the 90’s, car bombs and kidnappings were the leading headlines on the news; it was the norm. I was filled with haunting and also very beautiful images of my country's landscape and my art practice became my escape. Today, I paint as a means of describing a childhood where the violence of that time and the people that were directly & indirectly affected revolved in such a way that it created this menagerie of ‘normal’. As an immigrant to the US, I became starkly aware of the transaction between two 'allied' countries and my encounters in this place that we had always referred to as the "American Dream." Throughout my art practice, I aim to illustrate 'snapshots' of a peripatetic lifestyle that is focused on survival of the time – my own and of those I encounter along the way. Creating portraits of others who have defied the odds and were infamous & famous in one life time often takes over my canvasses as well. My work is full of unapologetic color and is a direct product of my expressed energy – meaning there are no sketches or previous drawings. I work solely from “in-the-moment” energy and I transfer what I see and feel onto the canvas. The rawness of my work exemplifies how my realities were never picture-perfect and so the images I render are not either.
NICOARTE.COM