Italian, born in 1976 in Lecco, Italy. Lives and works in Genoa.
In 2004 he received a degree in architecture from the Milan Polytechnic, but decided instead to follow his vocation as a painter.
The artist is particularly keen on depicting the human condition in the city, painting memories of his daily walks through the streets of his home town, Genoa, or the urban sites he sees on his numerous trips abroad. The life of Villa’s characters belongs to a story without plot, where figures wander past one another in the ambient light and open spaces of his compositions. Their physical presence melts into an imaginative atmosphere of elusive, subtle anxiety that the artist believes surrounds us all.
In 2007 Villa participated in the Harlem studio fellowship in New York, exhibiting in the group show, The Pioneers, curated by Raffaele Bedarida and for which he won the Premio Celeste for painting.
Since 2007 he exhibtis his work at the Salon des Estampes, Paris, with Galleria Bellinzona ; in 2009 an edition of his prints was acquired by BDIC (Bibliothèque de documentation contemporaine internationale at the musée d’histoire contemporaine), Paris.
In 2011 and he was one of six Italian artists chosen to create twelve illustrations for a new edition of the Gospels, the Evangelario Ambrosiano, commissioned by Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi for the Cathedral of Milan.
website : http://nicolavilla.com