Nicholas Grafia

Introduction

"EMPLOYING NON-LINEAR DIALOGUE STYLES, THEATRICAL DISGUISE, MASKS AND REFERENCES TO AMBIGUOUS PHYSICAL SHAPES AND PSYCHOLOGICAL STATES OF MINDS THROUGHOUT HIS MULTIDISCIPLINARY PRACTICE, HE IRRITATES AND SUBVERTS ESTABLISHED POWER RELATIONS AND CONVENTIONS WITHIN A HETERONORMATIVE WESTERN SURROUNDING WHILE CRITICALLY FAMILIARIZING IT WITH SUBJECTS THAT PREVIOUSLY HAVE BEEN OTHERED AND DISMISSED IN GLOBAL HISTORY WRITING."

- NUMÉRO BERLIN #10, SPRING-SUMMER 2021

Nicholas Grafia (b. 1990 in Angeles City, Philippines) stages interventions into the historical archive, weaving research, popular culture, as well as personal and art histories into his bright visual works, addressing themes of racial and sexual vulnerability by examining who is in- and excluded from the narratives that make up the archive. Working across disciplines, Grafia’s practice in performance and painting juxtaposes queer iconography with the historical – developing a visual style of rounded and elongated shapes, a distinctively camp color palette made up of fuchsia and pastels, that is referential to absurdism and which draws from close readings of post-colonial theory.

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Works