Daniel Nicolaevsky
A French-Brazilian visual artist and performer based in Paris, Daniel Nicolaevsky works across installation, sculpture, painting and performance, often with end-of-life objects, and creates participatory works in public space. A graduate of the Beaux-Arts de Paris and winner of the Prix des Amis des Beaux-Arts (2019), he is represented in the collections of the FRAC des Pays de la Loire and La Fab. In 2026, he created Miroir Normand in Giverny. In 2027, he presents La Tourmente des Flots at Beaufort27.
Daniel Nicolaevsky Maria was born in 1991 in Rio de Janeiro. He lives and works in Paris. Between Brazil, where he grew up, and France, where he trained, he carries a double geography that runs through all of his work.
He began with computer-generated imagery and digital media in Brazil, before joining the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris, where he completed his master’s degree in the studios of Claude Closky and Emmanuelle Huynh. From this path he keeps one gesture: moving seamlessly from 3D modelling to painting, from the screen to matter, from the most contemporary tool to the oldest know-how.
His practice spans painting, installation, sculpture and performance. It has one constant: end-of-life objects. Abandoned bed bases, cradles found in the street, worn tyres. Daniel Nicolaevsky sources them and reactivates them, gives them back a charge and turns them into the support for stories larger than themselves. This economy of reuse is not only an ecological principle: it is a way of believing that what has been damaged can still speak.
His work brings together social justice, colonial memory and the preservation of the living, without ever weighing down the message. The body holds a central place: the body that dances, that carries, that remembers. In 2019, his project De la Guerre à l’Art (From War to Art), a breathless dance in which he claims his place as a young Black artist in an art history that has rarely looked at him, won him the Prix des Amis des Beaux-Arts de Paris. Its filmed version entered the collection of the Seine-Saint-Denis department in 2023.
He has shown his work at the Palais de la Porte Dorée, the Théâtre de la Concorde and the Centre d’art contemporain Tignous, and carried out a year-long residency at the Fondation Fiminco, where he deepened his work in ceramics, oil painting and installation. His works are held in the collections of the Théâtre de la Concorde, the Fonds municipal d’art contemporain de Montreuil, the FRAC des Pays de la Loire, the Société Générale Collection and La Fab. Agnès b.
Since 2024, he has been creative director of Expo Favela Innovation Paris, a fair for artistic and cultural entrepreneurship run by CUFA France and dedicated to the empowerment of marginalised communities.
In 2026, he takes part in Monet, Monet, Monet, marking the centenary of Claude Monet’s death.
In 2027, he presents La Tourmente des Flots at Beaufort27, the contemporary art triennial of the Belgian coast.
Exhibitions
2027
La Tourmente des Flots, Beaufort27, Middelkerke, BE
2026
Miroir Normand, centenary of Claude Monet’s death, Giverny, FR
ASILE, EXODUS & FUGA, Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles, Paris, FR
Miroir Normand, Festival Photo Martagny, Martagny, FR
2025
L'Envers du Décor #8, Palais de la Porte Dorée, Paris, FR
2024
Expo Favela, Paris, FR
En Circuits Courts, Centre Tignous d'Art Contemporain, Paris, FR
A Private Affair, Cloud Seven, Brussels, BE
Open your Art, l'écho du présent, Musée Transitoire, Paris, FR
Artaïs, multiples sale, Galerie Dix9, Paris, FR
La mécanique de l'exploit, le corps à l'épreuve du sport, Musée d'art et d'histoire Paul Eluard, Saint-Denis, FR
2023
PROMESSES, Galerie du Crous de Paris, Paris, FR
Allongées au lit, Théâtre Paris-Villette, Paris, FR
MÉTA/SCOPE, POUSH, Aubervilliers, FR
L'Odyssée Urbaine, Fondation Fiminco, Romainville, FR
Berceau du Monde, Art-o-Rama, Marseille, FR
Art & Bagarre, La Ruche K., Marseille, FR
Multiple Art Days, Fondation Fiminco, Romainville, FR
Private Choice, éclosion de talents, Paris, FR
Artissima, Turin, IT
Dsoérdre, H Gallery, Paris, FR
Le Rêve d'Iroko, Galerie du Crous de Paris, Paris, FR
2022
Raízes do Tempo, Galeria Umida Arte, Rio de Janeiro, BR
Les Racines du Temps, POUSH Manifesto, Clichy, FR
MÉMWA VIVAN, Espace 29, Bordeaux, FR
Printemps Fleuriau, La Rochelle, FR
Horse Pill, by Crème Soleil, FR
2021
Dialogue(s), Galerie Épisodique, Paris, FR
Transport Commun, Société Générale, La Défense, FR
Ninguém vai tombar a nossa bandeira, Centro Cultural da Diversidade, São Paulo, BR
Vivere Memento, GIDE, Paris, FR
L'art dans la ville, 87 rue de Richelieu, Paris, FR
2020
Nature Endormie, Torcy, FR
Foire Saint-Sulpice, Salon de la Photographie, Paris, FR
Terre Perdue, by Bianca da Costa, Arts Déco Paris, Paris, FR
Amanhã há de ser outro dia : Demain sera un autre jour, Grandes Serres, Pantin, FR
The European Nomadic Biennial, Manifesta 13 Marseille, Marseille, FR
ThunderCage #17, Aubervilliers, FR
Erigir, No Drama, Paris, FR
2019
Prix des Amis des Beaux-Arts laureates, Galerie du Jour agnès b., Paris, FR
Da Guerra à Arte, DNSAP, Chapelle des Petits-Augustins, Paris, FR
A Vida Enorme, by Emmanuelle Huynh, CN D, Pantin, FR
Coup de Foudre, by Nathalie Talec and Fabrice Hybert, Fondation Groupe EDF, Paris, FR
Life is old there, by Tanguy Malik Bordage and Hoël Duret, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, FR
SCRATCH x Éditions Cimaise, Showroom 4, Paris, FR
One Thousand and One Nights, by Edith Dekyndt, CN D, Pantin, FR
2018
Ainda Dá, gestes pour un non-poème, Mains d'Œuvres, Saint-Ouen, FR
Le chemin se fait en marchant, by Esther Ferrer, CN D, Pantin, FR
ART AS EXPERIMENT: Performing the School, Fondation Sogetsu, Tokyo, JP
Epic Fail, by Jennifer Lacey, CN D, Pantin, FR
Monumental, by Jocelyn Cottencin, Centre Pompidou, Paris, FR
Échauffement général, by Jocelyn Cottencin, Centre Pompidou, Paris, FR
Formation, Fondation Thalie, Brussels, BE
2017
Vertebral / Bardo / Box Pacific, CalArts, Los Angeles, US
Monumental, by Jocelyn Cottencin, CN D, Pantin, FR
Animal vu, mal vu, Performing Species Vol. I : Gazella, Point Éphémère, Paris, FR
Entre Nós / Entre Nous, l'espace entre nous, DNAP, Beaux-Arts de Paris, Paris, FR
2014
Chasing Light, Le Cardinal, Toulouse, FR
Avec Amour, Le Cardinal, Toulouse, FR
Fragments de Joie, rue Bayard, Toulouse, FR
2012
Avenida Central, Museu de Arte do Rio, Rio de Janeiro, BR
Awards and grants
2024 ADAGP grant, artistic research time, Paris, FR
2022 Prize of the Fondation Dream big and grow fast, Paris, FR
2021 Révèle ton Talent, Urban art, Paris, FR
2021 Prix GIDE, Paris, FR
2019 Prix des Amis des Beaux-Arts de Paris, Paris, FR
Education
2020 DNSAP, master’s degree, École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris, FR
2017 CalArts, California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles, US
2014 Studios of Emmanuelle Huynh and Claude Closky, Beaux-Arts de Paris, FR
2013 Atelier Prep'Art Sud, Toulouse, FR
2009 MÉLIÈS, school of 3D, film and animation, São Paulo, BR
2008 Colégio Pedro II, Tijuca II campus, computing track, Rio de Janeiro, BR
Residencies
2026 Festival Photo Martagny, Martagny, FR
2024 La Frégate, APES-DSU, Montreuil, FR
2023 Fondation Fiminco, Romainville, FR
2022 6bis Fabrik, Vitry-sur-Seine, FR
2021 Festival Casa Tomada, Rio Grande do Norte, BR
2021 Oficinas, São Paulo, BR
2020 White Mountain College, Beaux-Arts de Marseille, Marseille, FR
2018 Art as Experiment: Performing the School, Tokyo University of the Arts, Toride, JP
Collections
2025 Théâtre de la Concorde, Paris, France
2024 Fonds municipal d’art contemporain, Montreuil, France
2024 FRAC des Pays de la Loire, Carquefou, France
2023 Seine-Saint-Denis departmental collection, Saint-Denis, France
2022 Société Générale Art Collection, La Défense, France
2021 GIDE, Paris, France
2020 Altarea, Paris, France
2019 La Fab., agnès b.’s foundation for contemporary art, Paris, France