Adriano Nicot

In 2022 Nicot was selected to be featured in the Pompano Beach Cultural Center's Culture and Identity of Our America collective exhibition. The exhibition opened on October 14th as part of the Center's Hispanic Heritage Month activities in collaboration with the Latin American Art Pavilion (LAAP).

In 2021 Nicot participated in the nonprofit HATT Foundation’s fine art auction with artwork valued in excess of $13,000. The fundraiser was in support of the foundation's mission to assist under-served and at-risk children, underprivileged families, and senior citizens based in Florida.

In November of 2020, Nicot proposed and initiated the “Brose Forever” group exhibition in honor of the late Cuban actress Broselianda Hernández to mark the first anniversary of her death. The exhibition was hosted and organized the following year by the Arte Libre group in collaboration with the North Miami Beach Library. “Brose Forever” featured over 40 international artists, including Nicot, from the United States, Cuba, Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela, Colombia, Chile, Uruguay, and Pakistan.

Along with his ongoing Portraits and mythological-themed series, a piece that has emerged as a significant work of Nicot's post-Cuba period is Dónde el alma se te quiebra, a painting which has often served as the centerpiece for VIP attendee photos in several major events and exhibitions Nicot has participated in. One notable example was 2018's Ceaseless Stream in Lakeland, Florida where community notables in attendance, including Lakeland Mayor Bill Mutz, posed alongside the piece with artist and curator Niten to promote the event. The piece was also mentioned in The Ledger's subsequent coverage of the exhibition. Another was 2020's Imagine: A Collective Art Exhibition at Florida International University where the piece was also used as the backdrop for promotional material.

Nicot's artwork has received analysis from media and art critics. The Miami Herald has described his work as "explor[ing] the mystical underpinnings of the daily", writing that "In Nicot’s hands, chickens, chairs, and babies alike are imbued with a heavy yet inexplicable symbolism." El Nuevo Herald has stated that Nicot uses the densely layered paint texture to evoke a sculptural sensorial quality in two dimensions and that Nicot "recovers the connection that existed between German Expressionism and the primal forces of art and/or its connection with the mythical." Miami Art Guide concluded "[Nicot's] smoky compositions are both timeless and reverent" as well as "austere" and The Ledger described Nicot's subject matters as "inhabitants of a netherworld." In explaining Nicot's portrait series, Anthony Ardavin, who curated Nicot's 2009 solo exhibition Current Works by Adriano Nicot at the Bakehouse Art Complex, said "the characters he paints are extraordinary because despite the total economy in their features they emanate an energy against which it is impossible to remain indifferent," referencing Nicot's objective that the pieces spark a deeper reflection within the viewer.

Nicot and his family relocated to Miami in 1999 during Cuba's special period due to the political-artistic repression and censorship of the Castro regime. Upon relocating to South Florida, Nicot and his family joined the Cuban Exile Community and he immediately immersed himself in the robust Latin American art market of the region. After relocating to the United States, Nicot would become among the region's well-established fine art figures and continue exhibiting extensively, earning additional awards internationally, and other visibility for his art and creative projects, including the publication of his poetry.

By the end of 1995 Nicot had graduated from the Academy of San Alejandro with majors in painting and engraving and had exhibited with both Vidals, Eiriz, and several other leading Cuban artists of the time. This would draw the attention of critics, gallerists, as well as collectors and pave the way to a string of exhibitions, his first awards, as well as further public art commissions before the close of the decade. Following the success of his early exhibitions, Nicot received a pair of scenographic commissions in 1998 for the Havana theatrical stage productions Mandragora (directed by Miguel Montesco) and Blue Moon (directed by Fernando Quinones). In the Cuba period of his career, Nicot became a member of several influential arts institutions such as the Fondo Cubano de Bienes Culturales, La Brigada Hermanos Saiz, and also served as an arts instructor at the Centro Cultural de Yara.

In addition to Nicot's association with Eiriz, the Vidals would also play a significant role in Nicot gaining visibility in his early career. Manuel Vidal first discovered Nicot when he encountered him sketching outdoors in Havana. After being impressed with his work, Vidal bought him canvases and used his network to help Nicot enroll into Cuba's premier fine arts educational institution, the Academy of San Alejandro, where he participated in the academy's Proyecto de Acción Integrada Cultural “Persona." As well-established figures in Cuba's visual arts community, the Vidals also helped secure and support Nicot's first solo and collective exhibitions and would exhibit alongside him to draw further attention. Manuel Vidal wrote the foreword to the catalog of Nicot's September 1994 exhibition Encuentros Cercanos while Hilda first exhibited alongside him the following year in the exhibition Mujer Multiple at Havana's Palacio de Convenciones. Also in 1994, Nicot was commissioned to paint a public art mural in the Casa de Cultura Centro in Havana. Another prominent instructor of Nicot was Belkis Ayon, who taught him engraving.

In interviews Nicot has attributed his early career success to his work being easily distinguishable from other Latin American artists due to their personal introspective nature and distinctly dark and stark tones. This was in contrast to the norms within Cuban and Latin American art to emphasize light and bright color in order to infuse their well-known tropical and Caribbean surroundings. He attributed this early distinction as a signature element of his work for imparting a memorable impact that led to his enduring appeal among critics and collectors. Manuel Vidal, one of his earliest high-profile supporters, has stated that Nicot's subjects “radiate a transparent spirituality [...] because [they have] been humanized, metamorphosed, and transfigured by the fabulous work of the artist." In addition to the early exhibitions with the Vidals, Antonia Eiriz, and other Cuban art notables, Nicot also gained recognition in Cuba for his 1994 public art commission in Havana to paint a mural in the Casa de Cultura Centro Habana.

Throughout his career Nicot has won art awards in Cuba, the United States, Latin America, Germany, and Israel. Among his first career recognitions was a Reconocimiento Award by FIART, the Feria Internacional de Artesania, on 15 June 1991 by Rafael Gutierrez, Director of the Fondo Cubano de Bienes Culturales. Nicot won the First Prize for his painting La Bella de la Alhambra, a key work of Nicot's early career, in the juried Third Salon of Havana's la Galeria Arte Siete on April 24, 1994, which was presided by Fidel Perez Cardenas, Director of the Centro Cultural Cinematográfico Yara. Nicot was awarded the Judge's Distinction Award by the Broward Art Guild in July 2009 for his Mixed-media painting Carmen during their Human Image and Portrait exhibition. City of Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernandez awarded Nicot a Personal Recognition Award on July 21, 2016, for his contributions to the exhibition The Afterlife of Color.

Adriano Adolfo Fernandez Nicot is a Cuban-American painter and poet based in Miami, Florida. He is known for a distinctive Neo-Expressionist style and is closely associated with the prominent Cuban artists Antonia Eiriz, Manuel Vidal Fernández, and Hilda Vidal Valdés. After becoming established in Cuba, Nicot relocated to the United States in the late 1990s. His work has since been featured in several books and exhibitions in the US and in Latin America.

Nicot has been highly active in exhibiting his art at a range of venues and has participated in over sixty solo and collective art exhibitions in Cuba, the United States, and Peru since launching his professional art career in the early 1990s. Nicot's first solo exhibitions were the pair of shows titled La Violencia de las Horas I & II (The Violence of the Hours) at Havana's Galeria Kahlo. The foreword to this first exhibition (Part I) was written by another notable Cuban art figure, Carlos Guzman, director of Havana's Galeria Kahlo. As a member of the UNEAC, Manuel Vidal wrote the foreword to the catalog of Nicot's September 1994 exhibition Encuentros Cercanos (Close Encounters).

Adriano Adolfo Fernandez Nicot was born on October 9, 1964, in Havana, Cuba during the early years following the Cuban Revolution. His parents were both born in Cuba and shared recent European backgrounds. His father, Adriano Adolfo Fernández Santarén, was a Cuban financier from Havana whose parents arrived in Cuba from Leon, Spain. His mother, Margarita Nicot Verdecia, was a computer programmer born in Guantanamo, Cuba of French ancestry that had migrated to Puerto Rico before arriving in Cuba. His French heritage from his mother's family is significant for his descendance from Jean Nicot, after whom Nicotine is named. Per Spanish naming customs, both his paternal and maternal family names are used with his mother's family name appearing last. As he pursued his artistic career, his name would be simplified accordingly and he became known professionally as Adriano Nicot.