Nicola De Maria, born in Foglianise on December 6th 1954, is an Italian painter.

 

He is one of the five artists part of the Transavanguardia Italiana, theorized by Achille Bonito Oliva in 1978. However, differently from the other remaining four (Sandro Chia, Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi and Mimmo Paladino), De Maria’s work focuses mainly on abstractionism with an pictorial approach which exceeds the limits of the physical canvas, putting the artwork in relation with the surrounding space.

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De Maria has exhibited at the Venice Biennial in 1980, 1988 and 1990, at the Kassel Documenta 7 in 1982, at the San Paolo Biennial in 1981, at the Sydney Biennial in 1982 and at the Roman Quadrennial in 2005 and 2012. 

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Retrospective shows of his works have taken place in the Krefeld Museum Haus Lange in 1983, in the Basel Kunsthalle in 1983, in the Zurich Kunsthaus in 1985, in the Amsterdam Stedeljik in 1985, in the Tokyo Seibu Museum of Modern Art in 1988, in the Nimes Musèe des Beaux Arts in 1994, in the Rome Museo d’Arte Contemporanea in 2004 and in the Prato Pecci Museum in 2012. He has also participated in the retrospectives on the Italian Transavanguardia at the Castello di Rivoli in 2003 and in the Palazzo Reale in Milan in 2012. 

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De Maria currently lives and works in Turin.