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Overview
Central to her practice is the re-contextualization of images drawn from her expanding personal archive, sourced from films, found photographs, and online forums.
Nicolina Morra is a painter who investigates longing as a driving force in the human experience. She graduated from Florida State University in 2025 with a BFA in studio art and an emphasis on painting. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
In her work, she recontextualises images and disrupts and imbues them with new meanings with her painting technique, often paired with hyper-realistic depictions of other objects. Her work has been featured in several exhibitions in various institutions and independent spaces in the United States, including Latitude Gallery in New York (2026), Allgorithim House, Hollywood (2025), Impossible Currency, Atlanta (2025), LeMieux galleries, New Orleans (2025) and a solo exhibition Ruby/Dakota gallery, New York (2025).
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Works
Nicolina Morra American , b. 2003
Altar (The People’s Princess), 2025Oil on canvas
160 x 239 cm
63 x 94 1/8 inCopyright The ArtistIn Altar (The People’s Princess), Nicolina Morra presents a triptych centered on a blurred portrait of Princess Diana layered with highly rendered Beanie Babies, including the commemorative “Princess the Bear.”...In Altar (The People’s Princess), Nicolina Morra presents a triptych centered on a blurred portrait of Princess Diana layered with highly rendered Beanie Babies, including the commemorative “Princess the Bear.” The central composition frames Diana as a contemporary saint-like figure, reflecting the way collective mourning and media circulation elevate public figures into mythic status. The Beanie Babies operate as relics within this secular shrine, while also referencing the cultural obsession that once surrounded them, when mass-produced toys became objects onto which people projected fantasies of future wealth and emotional value. By combining celebrity iconography with collectible commodities, the work examines how contemporary culture constructs new forms of worship, transforming pop figures and consumer objects into vessels for belief, grief, hope, and longing.
Provenance
Artist's studioBiographyEDUCATION
2025
Bachelor’s in Fine Arts, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2025
- Ruby/Dakota gallery, New York, NY
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2026
- Enari gallery, Amsterdam, NL, "Sweet Surrender"
2025
- The New York Academy of Art, New York, NY, “The AXA Art Prize US Exhibition”
- Impossible Currency, Atlanta, GA, “Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue”
- LeMieux Galleries, New Orleans, LA, “So Real”
- Working Method Contemporary, Tallahassee, FL, “Everything I’ve Ever Known”
- Point Blank, Chicago, IL, “Slipcover”
- Venvi Art Gallery, Tallahassee, FL, “Locust Technician”
- Bascom Centre for the Visual Arts, Highlands, NC, “Emergence”
- Field Projects, New York, NY, “Echo Locator”
2024
- Art Centre Sarasota, Sarasota, FL, “Trompe L’oeil”
- Jag Gallery, Key West, FL, “Small Works”
- Phyllis Straus Gallery, Tallahassee, FL, “Reserves”
- La Luz de Jesus Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, “Everything But the Kitchen Sink”
- Thomasville Centre for the Arts, Thomasville, GA, “THOM Collective”
- Gadsden Arts Centre & Museum, Quincy, FL, “Bite From the Apple”
2023
- William Johnston Building Gallery, Tallahassee, FL, “Paracosm”
- Phyllis Straus Gallery, Tallahassee, FL, “Flowing Substances”
2022
- Phyllis Straus Gallery, Tallahassee, FL, “Art From the Home”
AWARDS & HONORS
2025
- AXA Art Prize Finalist
- Honors, Scholars, & Fellows Excellence in Visual Arts Award
- Career Preparation in the Arts Fund Scholarship
2024
- Mary Brown Ostlund Award
- Bess H. Ward Honors Thesis Award
- IDEA Grant Undergraduate Research Award
PRESS
2025
- Serena Hanzhi Wang, “Precise, Controlled Weirdness at Ruby/Dakota”, Cultbytes
Karla Menendez, “This Is the One With Magic”, Primary Colors Substack
ExhibitionsContact FormSend me more information on Nicolina Morra
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