Nicola Palermo, Behind the cover ItaliaImballaggio 9/2022

Nicola Palermo, born in Senise (PZ) in 1955, lives and works in Vigevano. His first exhibition experiences date back to 1987, with the First and Second Biennial “Young Contemporary Art” at the Sartirana Lomellina Castle.

In 1994, he organized his first solo exhibition “I Legni” at the Palazzo Roncalli foundation in Vigevano. In the same year he won the silver plaque at the Giorgio Mondadori editorial “ARTE” Award. Thus began a research that tends to involve the observer on an emotional and intellectual level. Due to the extreme essentiality of his works and the highly poetic message, the author completes his research in 1997 with a group exhibition “Arte in Vigevano: Una storia che continua” curated by Giuseppe Franzoso and under the patronage of the General Directorate for Culture of the Lombardy Region. At the culmination of the artistic journey, he withdraws from the exhibition world for a decade.

Approach to digital photography

After the long parenthesis of silence, he returns in 2007 with a totally innovative path: digital photography. Through this form of expression, the author continues the emotional investigation toward a natural and gradual evolution of thought, coming to develop works that can be traced back to “video art.” Palermo searches for the beauty and poetry of life through an inner reflection to find something spiritual and intimate. Already, “I legni” constituted meditations and produced natural dialogues between the solids and voids of forms, and today, by resorting to digital images, it is more natural for the artist to abstract emotions: the use of black and white first, color later produce his “Reflections,” digital images that almost look like paintings.

The silent dialogue that Palermo uses to describe his concepts is the new subject of his work. In 2011, with the photograph “Self-Portrait,” Nicola Palermo took third place at the “Vie di fuga” award in Vigevano. In 2012 he participates in the event “Venti Veggenti | il φ tra la luce” curated by Silvia Capiluppi in collaboration with Fortunato D’Amico with the video Tutto Scorre.

In 2018 he is selected in the competition “ITALIANISM Art and Words” with the photograph the “Return of the Myth”. From 2015 to 2019 Nicola Palermo also organized artistic events for the Cultural Association of Lucanian People “Rocco Scotellaro,” also in Vigevano.