In the spring of 1987, Nigro started working on his series of “portraits”, which he took from the world of myth, as in the case of Da i ritratti: Agamennone, 1988, or from his reflections on the act of painting itself, as in Da i ritratti: ritratto di un dipinto, 1988.

The following year brought his “satanic paintings”, a rebellious and angry response to the fatwa imposed in the case of The Satanic Verses, published in 1988 by Salman Rushdie, who was sentenced to death by the Iranian Ayatollahs. Here the brushstroke appears as a solid column that almost completely fills the field, where the colour becomes more dramatic, as in the case of Da i dipinti satanici: rivoluzione, 1989, and of Da i dipinti satanici: lotta, 1989.

Later, with a renewed interest in a lighter palette, Nigro arrived at his “structures”, which he created between 1990 and 1992. The exhibition includes 6 strutture, 1991, and the artist’s last work, entitled 25 strutture, 1992. In this series, it is colour itself that creates unifications, which are concentrated to a greater or lesser degree. Here, instinct and gesture establish the form, which is lightened by a much thinner stroke. 

In the “structures”, the small lines that were an important feature of Nigro’s works form nuclei in which their intersections create a form of acceleration and an accumulation on the white ground of the canvas. Like the traces made by a calligrapher, they build a sequence and once again recall a musical script. 

Throughout his career, the grid and proportions formed an essential pictorial and mental point of reference for Nigro, into which he could transfer both mathematical principles and feelings and impulses. In his last works, however, he reached an almost zero degree in his visual language, opening up to the freedom and quality inherent in the medium of painting, which always underpinned his artistic research.