Nicholas Grafia (b. 1990 in Angeles City, Philippines)
Lives and works in Berlin
stages interventions into the historical archive, weaving research, popular culture, as well as personal and art histories into his bright visual works, addressing themes of racial and sexual vulnerability by examining who is in- and excluded from the narratives that make up the archive. Working across disciplines, Grafia’s practice in performance and painting juxtaposes queer iconography with the historical – developing a visual style of rounded and elongated shapes, a distinctively camp color palette made up of fuchsia and pastels, that is referential to absurdism and which draws from close readings of post-colonial theory.