Today we’d like to introduce you to Nino Liguori.
Hi Nino, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I have always enjoyed telling stories through my paintings. My work is rooted in visual parables and allegories that explore art history, design, innovation, and humanity itself. I am drawn to the space where fable and fact intertwine, and where imagination and realism can coexist. Through painting, I create visual stories that consider where we, as humanity have been, where we are, and where we may be going.
I advanced my painting studies through graduate work in Europe and Asia. I studied at the Académie de Beaux-Arts in Paris, collaborated with art collectives in Rome, and studied brush and breathing techniques in East Asia. These experiences expanded my understanding of painting as both a disciplined practice and a cross cultural form of storytelling.
In the early to mid 2010s, I began exhibiting extensively in Miami’s Wynwood Arts District. For four years, I showed my work at Linero Gallery during the height of Wynwood’s gallery walk era, a formative period in both my career and the development of the district as an international art destination. During this period, my work was featured by Wall Street International, bringing additional attention to my paintings and expanding my audience beyond South Florida.
Following my years in Wynwood, I began exhibiting nationally and internationally, with shows and presentations in cities including New York, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Rome, Vienna, and other art centers in the United States and abroad. My work continued to find its way into the collections of returning collectors and supporters, and I developed a practice that moved comfortably between the gallery, the studio, and larger cultural conversations.
My career has also included opportunities to discuss my work beyond the traditional gallery setting. Following a significant sale during Miami Art Week, I was interviewed by NPR as an artist, giving me an opportunity to speak about my paintings, my creative process, and my experience as an artist working within the South Florida art community.
Alongside my studio practice, I have worked extensively as an art educator. I have worked with diverse socioeconomic and racial groups throughout Broward County and have twice been a finalist for Visual Arts Educator of the Year. Subsequently, my students have won the Congressional Art Competition for the last 4 years in a row. Education has remained an important part of my life as an artist because I believe that art, storytelling, and creative thinking are fundamental to how we understand ourselves and the world around us.
In 2024–2025, I was selected as an Artist in Residence at Bailey Contemporary Arts (BaCA), sponsored by the City of Pompano Beach. The residency provided me with the opportunity to devote significant time and energy to my studio practice and ultimately led to the creation of what I consider the most significant collection of my life: The Bill of Wrongs.
The Bill of Wrongs is a collection of ten allegorical oil paintings based on the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. In this body of work, I explore the often unexplored, contradictory, misunderstood, and sometimes uncomfortable nature of our most fundamental rights.
We are a nation of laws, but we are also a nation that has changed dramatically since James Madison and Thomas Jefferson and their contemporaries established the framework of the Bill of Rights. Through these paintings, I examine the distance between the ideals represented by our foundational amendments and the complicated realities of contemporary life. I am interested not simply in where we have been, but in where we are now and, more importantly, where we may be headed.
Typical of my tongue-in-cheek approach, the paintings in The Bill of Wrongs offer a twisted and surreal interpretation of our first ten amendments; a visualization of our inalienable rights.
My Italian heritage and the storytelling nature of my work are central to my artistic identity. I use my last name as the foundation of my artistic name, adding an “A” to Liguori to create ALIGUORI. It is the name I use to sign my paintings and represents the connection between my identity, my heritage, and my lifelong practice of creating allegorical works.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has certainly not been a completely smooth road. Like most artists, I have experienced periods of uncertainty, setbacks, and the challenge of balancing an artistic life with the realities of making a living. There were years where I survived off only selling prints of my work.
One particularly unexpected setback came a few years ago when my Instagram account was hacked and ultimately compromised. At the time, it represented years of accumulated work, documentation, relationships, collectors, and connections I had built through exhibitions across the country.
Losing that digital history was frustrating, particularly because social media had become such an important part of how artists maintain visibility and stay connected with their audiences. In some ways, it felt as though a portion of my professional history had suddenly disappeared. Rebuilding that presence has taken time, and the number of followers I have today does not reflect the audience and relationships I had developed over the years.
At the same time, the experience reminded me that an artist’s career is much bigger than a social media platform. The relationships I have built with collectors, repeat buyers, fellow artists, galleries, and supporters did not disappear with an account. I continued painting, exhibiting, selling work, and developing new opportunities. Most importantly, I kept working.
In retrospect, I think that experience reinforced something I have always believed: the studio has to remain at the center of an artist’s life. Platforms change, audiences change, and circumstances change, but the work itself is what ultimately carries a career forward. My recent Artist in Residence experience at Bailey Contemporary Arts and the creation of The Bill of Wrongs, the most significant collection of my life, have been a wonderful reminder of that.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I suppose I am somewhat old school when it comes to art. I have always loved the idea that art can communicate without words. It can connect with people without requiring an explanation, make us think and ponder, or simply leave us awestruck by an artist’s ability. Most of all, I love that a painting can transcend a conversation. It can stay with you. You can walk away from it and continue thinking about it long after the conversation has ended. This is what drew me to painting when I was just a small child walking through MoMA or the Metropolitan Museum in New York City.
I have never wanted to make art simply to make people sympathize with me or to ask them to connect with my personal history or struggles. Those things may inevitably find their way into the work, but I believe the work should be able to stand on its own. I am much more interested in creating something that allows the viewer to bring their own experiences, perceptions, questions, and interpretations to it.
It seems to me, there is certainly more interest today in the story behind an artist, and in the personality of the artist, perhaps even the sexuality and race of an artist and I understand why. Artists are people, and our experiences inevitably inform what we create. But for me, the work itself has always been the most important part of the conversation. I want the painting/art to be the thing that stays with you.
Essentially, I have to make things that mean something. I have a difficult time creating work that feels empty or without content. There is something in me that needs to have an idea, a question, a story, or some kind of human experience at the center of what I make. I often think about that idea in the spirit of an old hip-hop phrase from the Pharcyde, “I gotta kick something that means something”. That philosophy resonates with me deeply; it always has.
At the same time, I don’t believe that having an overarching artistic identity means I have to paint the same thing forever. ALIGUORI is an ongoing allegorical visual practice, but within that larger world I give myself permission to experiment. Every six months or so, I often find myself moving into a new series, technique, or visual language. I have created works designed to connect one room to the next, explored abstracted environments using classical sculpture as a recurring theme, experimented with the old cyan and magenta 3-D process, and incorporated mixed media into my paintings.
That freedom to experiment is important to me. The subject matter may change, the technique may change, and the visual language may change, but the underlying desire remains the same: I want to make work that has something to say and gives the viewer something to discover.
We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
I define success in a few different ways, and not all of them have anything to do with recognition.
First, there is the simple and profound joy of getting what is in my head out into the world. One of my old art masters once told me, “Being an artist is like being pregnant. You can’t be a little bit.” I have always loved that idea. To me, you either are an artist or you are not. What makes me an artist is that almost irresistible need to manifest an idea or a concept and see it become something tangible. That moment of release is incredibly cathartic. It is a joy and, in itself, a kind of success.
I also consider it a success when I realize that I am still improving. I love being surprised by what I can do. I love discovering that I can work faster, solve a problem that once seemed difficult, or translate something that exists in my imagination into paint more successfully than I thought I could. That feeling of growth keeps me excited about being an artist.
Of course, I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy recognition. I love notoriety. I have been fortunate enough to taste success and acclaim, and I am grateful that my career has allowed me to experience some extraordinary moments, including being part of the energy and excitement of Miami’s art scene during its heyday. Those experiences mean a great deal to me.
But ultimately, I measure success by something much more personal. It means the world to me when someone appreciates my work enough to live with it. When a collector comes back and tells me they have two or three of my paintings, I am genuinely honored. Someone has chosen not just to look at something I created, but to make it part of their life.
The greatest success, to me, is imagining that one of my paintings might remain on someone’s wall long after I am gone. That it might be cared for, passed down, and eventually become part of another generation’s story. If something I created can bring someone joy, peace, curiosity, intrigue, or even simply make them stop and think for a moment, then I have accomplished something that matters.
Recognition is wonderful. Sales are wonderful. Improvement is wonderful. But a lasting relationship between a person and a painting. That is success by every measure that matters to me. That is the kind of legacy I hope to leave.
Pricing:
- Prints (limited edtn) available at aliguoriart.com $40 any piece free shipping
- Commissions available: contact aliguoriart.com
- For original pricing please goto aliguoriart.com/contact
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Aliguoriart.com
- Instagram: Aliguoriart_Nino_Liguori
- Facebook: Aliguoriart
- Youtube: Art 360- Nino Liguori
