Renzo Nucara (1955) - Scrittura

Original opera Unica by maestro Renzo Nucara titled "Scrittura",
Acrylic on masonite 20x20, year 1984.
On the back, title, signature and year. Authenticity of the artist on a photograph reporting the related archive number. The work is unframed.

The painting, signed at the lower right "Nucara '84", is an abstract piece that well reflects the expressive language typical of this Calabrian artist, active between painting and material experimentation.
The palette is vibrant and contrasting, the texture strongly tactile, with thick pastes and layered applications that give relief and depth, scattered across the canvas are calligraphic marks. These elements recur in Nucara’s poetics, where writing and painting fuse.

Renzo Nucara (Crema 1955) graduated from the Liceo Artistico in Bergamo in 1973. He attended the Brera Academy in Milan. His first solo show dates to 1977 at the Ticino Gallery in Milan. In the 1980s his work revolves around the theme of the Diary. Emotions, sensations, ‘daily facts’ are written spontaneously on the canvas. They are often phrases written backwards or fragmented, deliberately placed in the space between the explicit and the hidden, between what wants to be revealed and what one prefers to keep silent.

In the following years writing becomes a sign, the canvas gives way to tridimensionality, new materials enter the game—wood, found objects, transparent films—through which he creates the Memory Boxes, favoring an approach that is ironic and playful.
He returns to two-dimensionality with the Reperti that characterize his artistic production in the 1990s. They are forms that recall the idea of an object already worn by time, first made of papier-mâché and foam, then in plastic material on which layers of color, granules, pigments, elements of the natural world accumulate.
In 1993 he co-founded Cracking Art Group with five other artists. The material of choice is plastic, which also becomes a vehicle for ecological and social engagement. He participates with the group in the 49th Venice Biennale with the installation Sos World: more than a thousand plastic recycled and gilded turtles occupying the gardens around the historic pavilions. He returns to the Biennale, again with the Group, in 2011 and 2013.

The dimension of collective art also characterizes other Nucara projects: Time Machine and Arbre Magique. Individually, he continues his artistic research, focused in the early 2000s on Resinfilm—layers of resins, pigments, natural and artificial objects, the matrix for the later series in Stratofilm and Shape plexiglass.

Throughout his long career, Renzo Nucara created several animal-themed paintings with a pop sensibility: in serigraphies on PVC depicting wild animals, the artist inserts heterogeneous stylized elements, which when lit create a singular sense of disorientation.

Main Exhibitions:
1977 – First solo show at Galleria Ticino, Milan.
1980s – Series of exhibitions dedicated to the Diary cycle, with canvas works and writings, in various Italian galleries.
1993 onward – Founding Cracking Art Group and first group exhibitions of the group in Italy and abroad, with installations in regenerated plastic in museums, squares and public spaces.
2001 (49th Venice Biennale) – Installation “SOS World” (Cracking Art Group): over a thousand turtles in recycled and gilded plastic in the Biennale gardens.
2011 and 2013 – New Cracking Art Group participations at the Venice Biennale, with large urban installations in regenerated plastic.
2010 – “Renzo Nucara, Solo Work – Miami”, Art Deco Welcome Center, Miami Beach, solo show curated by Galleria Ca’ d’Oro.
2012 – Solo show at Ca’ d’Oro Gallery, Rome, dedicated to the “Stratofilm” works.
2013 – Birth of the project “Stratofilm”, presented in various exhibitions in Italian and international galleries.
2014 – “Arbre Magique. Renzo Nucara and Carla Volpati”, exhibition/project in Varese, with installations of plastic animals and natural elements.
2022 – Exhibition and installation projects related to Cracking Art and the research on Resinfilm/Stratofilm.
2023 – New installations and participations in public art routes and site-specific projects.
2024–2025 – Solo show at FabbricaEos, Pavia, with works tied to Cracking Art Group and to the latest research.