Nick Farhi

Nick Farhi’s interdisciplinary practice navigates the liminal space between figuration and abstraction to illuminate themes of memory, emotional labor, and social equity. Working across painting, sculpture, video, and performance, Farhi draws on found imagery, cinematic cues, and vernacular references to construct vibrant, layered compositions that blur the boundaries between the intimate and the collective.

His paintings often evoke a sense of shared nostalgia, anchoring ephemeral moments in lush, tactile surfaces of oil paint. Objects and gestures—seemingly ordinary—become charged with deeper meaning, offering quiet meditations on labor, cultural identity, and the architecture of feeling. Through this lens, Farhi amplifies the poetics of the everyday while maintaining a critical sensitivity to social and historical frameworks.

Educated at Columbia University, where he earned his MFA and later taught, Farhi extends his inquiry through writing, teaching, and research-based residencies including Palazzo Monti and the Center for Arts, Design, and Social Research. With recent exhibitions at Tang Contemporary (Hong Kong), Stems Gallery (Paris), and The Jewish Museum (New York), Farhi’s work continues to engage audiences through its empathetic, incisive exploration of the overlooked and the enduring.