Antoinette Nicolini

One of the main qualities of this artist is authenticity with the will not to surprise, but rather to seduce by the possibilities that she offers us. To enter one of her paintings is above all to discover an unknown land, it is also to accept an adventure to the confines of the imagination and, above all, a possibility to detach oneself from a reality that is too often static. Antoinette Nicolini paints as if this act were essential to her survival in our current world. Each of her paintings tells a story in the form of a parable; it is up to us to decipher and understand it in order to benefit not only visually but also intellectually. For each detail of his paintings gives meaning to the whole, each nuance and each light structure with application the theme addressed and translated on the canvas. To be precise, let’s say that Nicolini carries within her this need to share what she feels; it is this that makes her live and that links her to the world.

Whatever the subject, we find the same strength, the same desire to go to the end of what she has seen. For her, everything must be “digested”, interpreted, so that the viewer has a kind of book to read. What is fascinating in her work is that the paintings offered to the public in an exhibition are so many sibylline messages to be discovered. Whether it is landscapes of Venice, Paris, New York or his native Corsica, fields of poppies, classical or flamenco dancers, all these works have a common denominator: the search for a truth that ennobles what we see or think we see, that metamorphoses things and transforms us by showing us the path where the creative revelation is hidden. All this is made possible by the skill of the painter, by a great technique acquired of which she is not a slave, and which allows her to juggle with the lines, the colors and the nuances and thus to be able to keep her writing whatever happens. The writer Céline, in an interview with a journalist said: “The important thing in literature is style! I believe that this is valid for all the arts and Antoinette Nicolini’s style, that is to say her pictorial writing, is well recognizable, well marked.

This new exhibition which will be held at the Galerie du Marais will allow us to discover the monograph dedicated to this extraordinary painter, with multiple possibilities. Let us thank the Galerie du Marais, and more particularly Paule France Luciani and Cyril Bataille for presenting us a rare artist who has not finished surprising and seducing us.

Patrice de la Perrière

Universe of Arts