Our Artistic Director Marco Crispano interviewed Nicholas Farhi for the Prisma Art Prize. In the conversation, Farhi reflects on “looking” as the core of his practice, on why painting remains a vital—yet demanding—language, and on the importance of stepping outside the studio to let ideas form. He also shares thoughts on emerging artists, teaching as a way of learning how to think (and how to look), and why residencies—more than money—can be the most transformative prize an artist receives.
Nicholas Farhi is a New York–based visual artist now working between Milan and New York, whose practice spans painting, sculpture, installation, and performance. He has exhibited internationally and has also taught painting at Columbia University, bringing an educator’s perspective to his role as a Prisma Art Prize juror.
M.: If you had to describe your practice today with one word, what would it be?
N.: One word—I would say looking.
M.: And why?
N.: The minute you wake up, you begin working from the first light of the day. As a painter, you’re constantly observing shapes and colors and feelings, trying to bridge a connection between your waking life and imagination. It’s not just about painting. It’s about thinking. It’s about seeing.
I feel like I’m a filmmaker that makes paintings, or like a fashion designer that makes paintings. I don’t feel like I’m just only a painter. In order to make very bespoke work, you need to think multi-dimensionally to crystallize a unique perspective and a unique output.
If I’m looking at an artist’s work—whether it’s a student or a younger artist—I’m asking myself: does this person feel free when they’re making their work? Otherwise it becomes a decorative errand, or maybe something I’ve seen already.
M.: Your work moves between painting, sculpture, installation and performance. How do you decide which medium to use?
N.: I paint primarily to make a living. I’ve written many performance works that have never been shown before. I don’t think the art world is so kind to sculpture and installation and performance.
So I often paint because it’s more permanent, and it can generate a level of support that maybe a performance can’t. Or maybe I’m writing a screenplay for a film—that’s more of a long-term project.
I think it comes down to the relationship of time. I used to feel it necessary to be in the studio all the time, every day, and it devoured my health. A lot of younger artists get into this mentality where they’re like a hamster in a wheel.
But I think great paintings don’t come from repetition. They come naturally and spontaneously. My favorite ideas were just around the corner outside of my studio. In order to come into ideas that might change the way you think, you have to leave the studio.
Choosing a medium depends on what I’m feeling like doing that day. It’s like choosing a fruit out of a bowl.
M.: We have a lot of emerging artists. Can you tell us about your first steps with galleries—how did that happen?
N.: In 2014, a duo of Italian curators noticed I was making hyper-realistic paintings of wine stains—abstract, formulaic work. There are thousands of different hues one could study in wine, and I think I had an idea that felt original enough.
I was given the opportunity to build a solo exhibition in Torino. The show was called Falling in Love Again—an acronym for the brand Fila. Then I had solo shows that year in Miami with the late Bill Brady Gallery and another gallery in Marfa, Texas.
What’s changed mostly is that I make things that I want to see exist. I was a self-taught painter—I didn’t study painting intensely in undergrad. I actually wanted to be in the music business, but I realized I can feel like a producer when I step into my studio and orchestrate an energy around my time and the resulting expressions.
For emerging artists: show up, keep making things, and don’t try to compete with anyone else—you’re only in competition with yourself. You need to make things that you want to see exist. Sometimes the smallest painting in the room is the best painting in the room.
Artists in the canon were human beings—they made bad paintings, good paintings, and okay paintings. The best thing, as an educator, I can say to an emerging artist is: the only way they can be themselves is to show us that they spend time thinking—stimulating their process of ideation.
M.: You’ve taught—did teaching change you as an artist?
N.: Yes. You’re dealing with 30 different people—30 sets of hands, 30 different voices looking for a way to bridge whatever they’re feeling into a painting. I taught Painting One at Columbia for a semester, but I stay connected to the community.
You set out to show someone how to do something, and then they teach you how that’s possible through different channels of absorption. I might ask a student to read a short story about the neighborhood, so they can better imagine the task at hand.
Literature and film are a meeting ground. I don’t think great painters are taught how to paint—I think they’re taught how to think. How to look, how to feel, how to discard ideas. The students taught me how to think better about my work.
M.: What do you notice in younger artists today—what’s their biggest strength and their most common fragility?
N.: It depends on where the artist lives. New York feels like a different city sometimes for artists—it’s much harder than it was 12 or 15 years ago.
I also believe social media is a great help to artists. It’s not a popularity contest. It’s about being able to join a table of conversation in real life—being able to say: you can contact me here, and you can keep looking at what I’m working on.
But it’s advisable for a young artist to keep a level of mystique. There’s a style and a grace to sharing your Instagram or your website. It’s important for young artists to find their people—you have to find your community.
M.: You also write. What matters most to you when you write?
N.: I’ve written poetry and essays, and I’m writing a screenplay at the moment about an artist in New York. But I’m not a critic—I’m a painter.
What interests me most is reading other artists’ biographies. I recently reread Julian Schnabel’s CVJ, and there are passages that strike me. There are principal emotions that come out of writing, and that’s what interests me.
All of my titles—I write them after the painting is made. It’s a lyrical exercise. I love reading theory. There are parts of history where it’s amazing to see art transcend atrocities and terrible moments.
M.: What does it mean for you to judge within an art prize, with Prisma Art Prize?
N.: Older artists cared enough to propose that I go to a residency, and I feel it’s appropriate to pay that forward and help a young artist find communities that aren’t so everyday in their lives.
Residencies are crucial for artists who are meant to grow and meant to do this for the rest of their lives. Once you become a painter, it’s a bit like getting a tattoo—you can’t really quit. I want to paint till I’m a very old man.
Residencies are a landscape of possibilities: it’s a place where foundational relationships are built that last decades. It’s a huge honor to be a part of Prisma because residencies, to me, are the best prize an artist can win. Money comes and goes, but friendships sometimes are forever. If we can help people build more of those friendships, we’re doing a really great job.
