Carla Nicola

Of Italian–Mexican origin, she grew up as a citizen of the world, obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Architecture from the Academy of Mendrisio and a Master’s Degree from the Zurich Polytechnic, then moved permanently to Pisa, in Italy, in 2020, where she is raising two wonderful boys with her husband. After working as a freelance architect, she threw herself into full-time art in 2025.

Watercolor painting has been her playmate since childhood and, as well as her pencils, remains a faithful tool for continuous research ‘on the go’ wherever she goes. More recently, she has ventured into other techniques such as wood, oil and acrylic. Since 2024, she has been delving deeper into abstraction with acrylics and explored the enlarged proportions of murals.

Today, Carla seeks to find her place in the art world through different techniques, letting her emotions and the people in her surroundings inspire her. The titles of her works range from Italian to English to German until Spanish, being inextricably tied to the client and/or the source of inspiration.

“Creating is my way of distinguishing who I am from who I want to be. When I don’t do it, I get lost in society’s norms. It’s my salvation. Inspiration almost always comes from the people around me. Sometimes it’s beautiful paintings depicting beautiful people, other times it’s expressions of dark moments that allow me to express my discomfort. I have always used watercolors to reproduce the beauty of what I see around me, but thanks to acrylics, I am finding a style that allows me much more freedom of expression, not only in abstraction. For as long as I can remember, I have always wanted to create. My degree in Architecture allowed me to pursue a career in creativity, but often with little satisfaction. Today, I am a recovering perfectionist, and ‘stains’ allow me to free myself from ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ and allow art to flow through me with fewer predetermined rules.”