Disparate Materials Converse in Charlie Nesi’s “Homage” Series

In his ten years as a resident of Mexico City, Charlie Nesi has traversed an ever-developing and international art scene. What began as a painting residency, which he dropped out of after realizing he wanted to explore additional forms of artistic expression, has blossomed into a home and showroom in a 150-year-old brownstone in Roma Norte, a pop-up workshop in a parking garage, a series of exhibitions (including one at Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Querétaro), and a 2025 Zona Maco solo presentation with Galeria Furiosa.

Next up for Nesi is a metaphoric return home. “I am going to bring a body of work up from Mexico to New York City,” he tells Surface. “I will drive it—and I am going to document the travel process, photographing the works along the way.” This is no small feat, as some of the artist’s large-scale pieces weigh several hundred pounds. This magnitude as well as their layered materiality play an important role in his message and mission.

For “Homage,” a title that represents Nesi’s 2025 Zona Maco solo show and the body of labor-intensive work within, the artist melded steel, foam, and sliced leather. “When you juxtapose something that is cracked or decaying with something that is polished, it spotlights the old. It reframes it,” Nesi says. “I love the innate beauty in something that’s broken down. It sparks conversation. I love to blend that with something more refined to put both of those elements in dialogue. It sets them on the same pedestal—and it lures you in.”

The title references several sensations Nesi addressed while producing the pieces. “I strived to pay homage to all the things in my life that have assisted me in developing my style, aesthetic, craft, and my narrative,” he says. “By juxtaposing polished steel alongside decaying materials, the goal was to spotlight what had been discarded and show beauty in something which society has deemed past its expiration date.” It also nods to the artisans that helped him fabricate the works, and their all-hands-on deck process.

Nesi notes that the names of the “Homage” works are of the utmost importance, “as each has significance to the theme of the work but more importantly to me paying homage to the things that inspired me most and one of those things happens to be the women in my life. The piece titled October 24th 1947, 2025 is in honor of my mother, who passed away last year. She was my biggest fan and for as long as I can remember she allowed me and more so encouraged me to believe my way of thinking and creating was right even when society deemed it wrong.” Additional pieces, including It Was All A Dream and Skyscrapers, acknowledge other influential women in Nesi’s life.

For the “Homage” presentation, Nesi wove in two works from his previous series, “Constructs,” at the behest of art dealer and gallerist Bill Powers, whom he met two nights before the Zona Maco install. “Constructs” also employs polished steel, but in partnership with concrete. “A material like concrete exists in every corner of the world,” he explains. “It makes you feel like you are a part of the art. There’s also a story to it—like when a building has a crack or a person has a scar.”

It was Nesi’s 2021 museum show at Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Querétaro (MACQ), “Catharsis,” that set him on the path of dialogue through contrast. In fact, it brought upon a personal change in thought. “Just prior to that is when I pivoted from painting into what I do now,” he says. “The pieces in the show were composed of polished brass and red velvet. During the pandemic, the women who had been leading the costume design for the ballet at Palacio de Bellas Artes had lost their jobs. I employed one of them.”

Nesi had been experimenting with polished brass. “I burned it with nitric acid and fire to give it a patina,” he says. He coupled it with “red velvet that looked like it was out of Versailles.” The undercurrent of the material collision was the role brass plays in both affluent and impoverished areas on a global scale. “In the latter, it’s part of the infrastructure and in things that are camouflaged. In the affluent areas, it’s in the cutlery and the ornamentation, and things we equate with luxury. I wanted to take that material out of context. When you take it out of context, it creates a residual effect that asks, ‘what is beauty?’ It challenges the norms about what society denotes.”

Beyond the materiality, duality informs the very spirit of Nesi’s works—raw and industrial yet eloquent and elegant, wall-hung but sculptural, both conceptual and tactile. This harks back to his development as an artist. “I didn’t go to art school. I went to school for sociology and philosophy,” he says. “I worked in fashion. I love architecture and design. I pull from everywhere.”