About
El Nigro was born in 1982 in Naples, Italy, and grew up in a suburb at the north side of the city. He began his artistic journey at the age of 7 when, under the guidance of his father, he created his first oil painting.
From that moment on, he continued his determined journey, experimenting with techniques and materials and undergoing formative periods ranging from graffiti to theater scenography, from illustration to tattooing. After graduating from art school in 2003, he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples where he studied painting.
From 1999 to 2010, he devoted himself entirely to contemporary art, exhibiting in private galleries and museums under another name. In 2005, his work was included in the permanent collection of 100 Artists for a Museum at the CAM Casoria Museum (Naples), and in 2007, he inaugurated a major solo exhibition at the BAD Museum exhibition space of the Bunker Art Division. In 2009, he was invited to create a work for the Airswap project, conceived by Arianna Callegaro and Luca Mazza and curated by Mara De Falco for Not Gallery.
In 2012, he moved to London, where he lived for about five years and began working full-time as a tattoo artist. This quickly earned him international recognition for the originality and innovation of his work, leading to invitations to international fairs and guest appearances at numerous tattoo studios across Europe. He has also garnered dozens of interviews and publications. He returned to Italy in 2017 but slowly resumed exhibiting in 2021, where he participated at the Art&More by Glo project, curated by the communications agency Question Mark, where he was asked to create a 30x11-meter painting on PVC placed on the pavement of the Caracciolo seafront in Naples.
His most recent exhibition is a group show from FIGURATIVAS Prize at Meam Museum in Barcelona, where he earned an Honorable Mention. To date, his work addresses themes such as parental trauma, memory, solitude and non-belonging, exploring the emotional fragilities of our times starting from a personal and autobiographic perspective.
“You like to give captions to your images, what pleasure do you take in creating stories in your images? Maybe it’s because of my background, basically a life dedicated to Contemporary Art. As for drawing, it’s a need. I always try to give titles and build up little stories around certain series or characters. I would feel the work incomplete without. Although this need, usually I prefer to give just a hint of the story, leaving the reading key open to the observer. Suggestions, not explainations. If you explain an artwork, it dies. It doesn’t have a reason to exist anymore.“
(from an interview by Pascal Bagot - Inkers Magazine)
“Trying to understand who El Nigro is, the artist, looking at his works is like expecting to know a house by spying through the lock, seeing only a glimpse of it; because his drawings, although full of an intense, explicit and at times almost violent symbolism, are at the same time hermetic, described in a time that no longer exists except in the romantic and dark circle of his poetic.“
(Luca Cospito - from The Melancholic Temperament book's preface)
Selected Exhibitions:
2026 MINI MASTERPIECES SHOW / Revolution Gallery / Buffalo (NY) / USA
2025 FIGURATIVAS / Meam Museum / Barcelona / Spain 2023 MALACARNE / curated by Reverse Art / Museum of Anthropology / Napoli
2022 FIENDS OF THE DARK III / WOWxWOW Gallery / Scotland (UK)
2021 ART&MORE by Glo / curated by Question Mark / Lungomare di Napoli
2014 MINIATURE INK / Atomica Gallery and Things&Ink Magazine / London
2014 AGAIN! / AKA London / London
2013 GROUP SHOW / AKA London / London
2010 LUMEN / Complesso Monumentale di Santa Sofia / Salerno
2009 AIRSWAP / Not Gallery / curated by Mara De Falco / Napoli
2008 CONTAINER / curated by M. De Falco and Not Gallery / Napoli
2007 AFTER URBAN / University of Pennsylvania, PA / USA
2007 CRUEL AND ALLPOWERFUL KING / BAD Museum / Napoli 2006 RENCONTRES INTERNATIONALES / Paris -Berlin 2006 TEMPORARY CITIES / National Centre for Contemporary Arts NCCA / Moscow
2006 BIENNALE ADRIATICA ARTI NUOVE / San Benedetto del Tronto (AP)
2005 HYPE / Assab One - Hype Gallery / Milano
2005 ARCHEO DOC FEST / Villa Campolieto / Ercolano (NA)
2005 100 ARTISTS FOR A MUSEUM / CAM Museum / Napoli
2005 DIPTYCHS / Spazio Arte Gallery / Napoli
2003 SELECTED ARTISTS / Premio Arte Mondadori / Museo della Permanente / Milano
Interviews:
TATTOO LAB Fanzine#1