Dark Fear by Nicola Samori

Nicola Samori is an Italian artist born in 1977. His baroque portraiture is filled with dark and oppressive emotions of fear.

Psychologists offer a variety of methods to deal with fear, but sometimes a person’s subconscious mind finds the right solution on its own.

Samori’s calling card is gloomy portraits of gloomy people against a black background. If you look at the paintings of the painter casually, you will find that they are all written in the classical manner of the early Baroque.

The main theme of Samori’s work is the animal fear of man.

He is afraid of everything – life and death, the people and animals around him. He is afraid of himself, his body, his thoughts. And this fear from an ordinary feeling is transformed into something material. It seems to the viewer that you can feel it with your hands, find out what it tastes and smells like. Perhaps Nicola Samori gets some physical pleasure from the reaction to his paintings. A certain euphoric delight from the destruction of the human body instills in the cells of the author when writing terribly beautiful and strange portraits.

The aesthetics of horror, inspired by medieval motifs, still should not distract us from the simple fact that Samory is broadcasting a modern context. Unlike Renaissance artists, Nikola allows the curious viewer to think for themselves. Perhaps it is precisely with the aim of pushing for deep philosophical reflection that the artist hides the characters under masks.

Samori began work on the canvas as an ordinary artist, drawing all the details, prescribing emotions and actions. And then partially or completely distorts the faces of his characters, cutting and tearing the canvas where the character’s face is. Then he paints the place with dark paint, ruthlessly and cruelly.

How Nikola paints her paintings

According to Nikola, he concentrates his attention on the last stage of work on the picture, when the idea has already been implemented. Bringing the picture to its logical conclusion, and then exposing it to an extreme form of danger – what could be more interesting and intriguing? After all, the main thing is not how the human body looks, it is important what the human mind is.

Torsos of people hovering on a black background, tormented, bled, humiliated. The flesh rots and decays. In each stroke, anxiety and danger, anxiety and horror, fear of the past and present, of the future are read.

Who knows what the path chosen by the Italian artist will lead to? Will the author of gloomy depressive portraits be able to cope with his fears? One thing is clear – he has already instilled in the viewer a vague sense of the inconstancy and imperfection of the human body. He reminded me that nothing in this world lasts forever. Moreover, beauty is not eternal.