Scan Magazine | Culture Portrait | Natalie Nigro
The fluid and fragile appearance of Nigro’s motifs is partly due to her materials, ink and paper.
Fragile yet powerful, like the artist herself, the women in Danish Natalie Nigro’s paintings are beautifully intriguing.
Poetry in colours Fragile yet powerful, demure and intriguing – the women in Danish Natalie Nigro’s paintings render the word ‘beautiful’ satisfyingly inadequate. However, the inherently talented and captivating woman behind them perfectly reflects her works. Scan Magazine met the up-and-coming artist on the verge of her first gallery collaborations in Copenhagen and London. By Signe Benn Hansen | Photos: Natalie Nigro
Ever since she was just a toddler painting in her dad’s studio, Natalie Nigro has loved her art. However, when you talk to the now 40-year-old, it is clear that the fact that other people love her art too has come as quite a surprise to her. But they do. Just three years after her first exhibition, she has, thanks to her own social media accounts and word of mouth, sold her works to art lovers in all corners of the world. “For many years, my dad and my siblings were the only people who 124 | Issue 109 | February 2018
what many new artists only dream of: being signed by a gallery, Galleri Bomhuset in Copenhagen. Furthermore, her work is set to be exhibited around London through the London and New York-based Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery.
A stroke of luck knew I painted. They always asked me, ‘Why don’t you do something with it?’ But I, I don’t know, I was working with something else so I thought, I’m not an artist; I’m just someone who likes to paint,” says Nigro. “When people started buying my work, I didn’t expect that at all. I never thought anyone would like it enough to hang it in their house.” Recently, Nigro, who is currently living between London and Copenhagen, achieved
Despite her own concerns regarding her lack of a formal art education, Nigro has had a distinctively artistic upbringing as she worked with, and learned from, two well-established artists – her father Jorge Nigro and her uncle Adolfo Nigro. “My dad was a weekend dad, so we were always at his studio at the weekend. I would paint with him all the time, and I still do; when I visit, we paint together or talk about art,” explains Nigro. “He is also an art teacher and had all these