Nicola Maria Martino Biography
Nicola Maria Martino was born in Lesina in 1946, but moved with his family to Como where he studied for two years at the scientific high school before enrolling at the technical institute. He took the artistic high school diploma to be able to access the Academy of Fine Arts and in 1965 he moved to Rome to study Scenography, later changing his course of study and enrolling in Decoration. He was trained by Sante Monachesi and in 1970 he graduated with a thesis on the concept of erasure. In 1972 he was appointed assistant in Rome and in 1984 holder of the chair of Decoration at the Academy of Fine Arts in Turin. He was Director of the Academy of Fine Arts of Sassari from 1993 to 2010 and subsequently Commissioner with functions of Director of the Academy of Fine Arts of Turin. Since 2018 he has been President of the Academy of Fine Arts of Foggia.
Martino began to actively participate in the art scene in the early seventies, carrying out interventions and conceptual actions to undermine the pre-established system of the art world. After abandoning analytical procedures and the dematerialization of conceptualism in the mid-1970s, he anticipated the themes and techniques of the return to painting in the postmodern context.
The bra series of 1974 and Colore Dolore of 1976 represent for the artist the manifesto of a reappearance, of an appearance and of a nostalgic return to the labyrinths of painting. Since 1976 he has completely dedicated himself to the practice of painting as a search for a mythology in the sense of universal and personal memory. His expressiveness is contained, sunny and at the same time shadowy, with large chromatic expanses crossed by lyrical and restless signs and figures, intellectually elaborated quotations with references to de Chirico, Chagall, Kandinsky, Licini.
Cesare Vivaldi reported it in the Bolaffi in 1980 and presented it at the NRA Gallery in Paris. Since the mid-80s, Martino's painting has been praised in terms of luminous and spatial synthesis, in an intense, sensitive essentiality expressed in a deep and symbolic blue. Thanks to his long intellectual itinerary, Martino has exhibited in numerous galleries both in Italy and abroad and his works are present in prestigious international collections.
