Nicolas Leiva
Bio
Nicolás Leiva was born in Tucumán, Argentina, in 1958. In 1983 he graduated from the Faculty of Arts at the Universidad Nacional de Tucuman and continues his studies in Buenos Aires. Leiva, who always conceived of his career in global terms, exhibited for the first time outside Argentina in 1989, in San José, Costa Rica.
In 1990 move to Miami and he received a visa to the United States for “for exceptional talent” , precisely at the moment in which its international ascendancy as the capital of Latin American art and as a major venue in the international contemporary art scene would become established. Soon his work would become a widely recognizable element in this boom. Leiva has exhibited widely and realized commissions throughout Latin America, the United States and Europe, as well as South Africa and the Middle East.
Since 1996, Leiva has broadened his range of genres beyond painting and drawing to ceramics as well as the pictorial intervention. of industrial surfaces, such as automobiles, inflatable, motorcycles, surfboards and guitars. Presently he divides his time between Miami – his own studio- and Argentina.
Awards Received
2023 Miami Individual Artist (MIA) Grant, Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs
2017 “Illustrious Visitor” Honorary Distinction from National University of Tucuman
2017 “Orgullo Tucumano ” Distinction From Ministry of Education , Tucuman, Argentina
2000 Florida Individual artist Fellowship, Florida Department of State
1996 NEA Southern Arts Federation, Atlanta, Georgia
1992 South Florida Cultural Consortium, Miami, Florida
1989 International Art Biennial, Valparaíso, Chile
Museum and public collections
Snite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA
Museum Texas University, San Antonio, Texas
Berardo Collection Modern Art, Lisboan, Portugal
Casa Golinelli , Bologna, Italy
Marble Museum of Carrara, Carrara, Italy
Museo Maria Zambrano, Malaga, Espana
MALBA, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA
Museum “José Luis Cuevas”, Mexico City, Mexico
Molaa, Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach, CA
Miami-Dade Community College Mitchell Wolfson Campus, Miami, Florida. USA
Metro-Dade Cultural Resources, Miami, Florida, USA
Museum of Fine Arts of Tucumán, Argentina
Fundación García Lorca, Madrid, Spain
Empresas Líneas Marítimas Argentinas. Buenos Aires, Argentina
Fondo Nacional de las Artes, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Municipalidad de la Ciudad de Aguilares Collection, Tucumán, Argentina.
2015 Royal Caribbean: Anthem of the Sea: “What Makes Life Work Living”
Statement
Nicolás Leiva’s work constructs a universe where the imaginary is tamed through craftsmanship, in a fusion of forms that evoke archetypes—vessels, boats, winged figures—reinterpreted as symbolic devices. His ceramic pieces, which combine vibrant glazes, gold, platinum, and references ranging from the vegetal to the anthropomorphic, move fluidly between painting, sculpture, and utilitarian objects, questioning our relationship with the everyday and the transcendent.
Working between Miami, Faenza, and Italy, Leiva expands his language toward the interaction between industrial surfaces and refined craft materials, creating a tension between the classical and the pop, the sacred and the playful. His trajectory reveals a commitment to multiplying meaning: each object—a painted guitar, a marble-based work, an intervened ceramic—becomes a re-reading of both personal and collective myth, a reminder that form is as essential as the imagination that gives it life.
