The Nature Of Fear Nicola Samori May 2026

Samorì exploits this evolutionary glitch masterfully. The nature of fear is . His paintings are riddles with no answer, screams with no sound, bodies that cannot die because they were never alive to begin with. Conclusion: The Necessary Wound To write about Nicola Samorì is to fail, slightly. His work resists language. It speaks directly to the lizard brain—the part of us that fears the dark, fears rot, fears the moment the skin breaks. But perhaps that is his gift.

The result is a portrait that looks like it is suffering. Faces emerge from the darkness only to be slashed open, revealing the white canvas beneath as if it were bone. This technique—called sfumato ’s evil twin—creates a visceral response. We do not simply see a damaged face; our own skin sympathizes. We wince. Perhaps even more disturbing than the slashed paintings are Samorì’s “relics.” He often applies gold leaf to his wooden panels—the traditional Byzantine ground for halos and holiness. But he then scrapes the figures off entirely, leaving only a ghostly imprint, a shadow burned into the gold. the nature of fear nicola samori

And yet, because of the painter’s devotion to the material—the rich oil, the dramatic lighting—the ugliness becomes sacred. Samorì forces us to ask: If we cannot look at suffering, can we truly understand compassion? Fear is the gateway to empathy. We are afraid of the flayed figure because we recognize that we, too, are flayed beneath our clothes. Collectors often describe a strange phenomenon when living with a Samorì. Unlike a peaceful landscape or an abstract color field, a Samorì painting does not become “furniture.” At night, in the dim light, the scraped faces seem to move. The gold backgrounds pulse. The scratches look like fresh wounds. Samorì exploits this evolutionary glitch masterfully

Fear here operates through absence. You see the shape of a face, a hand, a torso, but the flesh is gone. You are looking at the —the empty shroud of a body that has dissolved in agony. The gold, instead of representing heaven, becomes a garish backdrop for oblivion. 3. The Inversion of Scale Samorì frequently paints on black, circular copper panels. The material is precious; the shape is intimate (like a cameo or a mirror). But the content is monstrous. Heads are twisted on spines. Mouths are frozen open in silent screams that never arrive. Because the works are small, you must lean in close. You cannot view them from a safe distance. Conclusion: The Necessary Wound To write about Nicola