Non solo Roma
Niké Borghese ha già al suo attivo una trentina di personali in tre continenti, ed ha certo i titoli per essere ormai considerata vestale artistica
dellacittà eterna. Ma la sua fervida attività non si impernia solo su Roma e sull’arte incisoria.
La sua identità è inconfondibile e forte anche negli oli su tela. La sua tavolozza pittorica è imparzialmente ricca di cultura mitica, di rigore compositivo,

di forte originalità concettuale. Comune denominatore: una armonia onirica, con l’orecchio spesso teso all’arcano linguaggio dell’Acqua.

Così accade per la Torre della Signoria che si specchia enigmatica sul selciato piovoso; o per il meditabondo Narciso che si specchia nel fiume Cèfiso; o per
la soave Aretùsa che è raffigurata al centro di un melodioso vortice liquido; o per l’antico ponticello spezzato sul torrente della mitica città di Ninfa.
Non sono numerose le grandi artiste figurative presenti in Italia: ma la polidèrica Niké Borghese è certo da annoverarsi tra loro.

Paola Francesca Natale
dalla rivista “Pragmatica”, gennaio 2008

Never has it happened before: in the whole history of art, no one has ever produced a 360-degree etching. This masterly, grandiose panoramic view of Rome
(530×56 cm) is the work of Niké Borghese. The panorama is simultaneously poetic and realistic, synthetic and analytical, but above all, fascinating: so
fascinating that it deserves a distinctive place among the most eminent Italian landscape artists, from Canaletto to Guardi for painting and to Piranesi for

Etchings of Rome.Like Giambattista Piranesi, Niké Borghese is not Roman: she was born at Nice, France. A diplomat’s daughter, she spent many years in Australia, England,
France and Asia before finally settling in the heart of Rome, at Palazzo Borghese, with a twofold anchor, her marriage and her art.

Against the stream. To express her artistic vocation, Niké Borghese has chosen a particularly arduous medium, and a rather unusual one for a woman: etchings
and aquatints, involving a particularly hard and reflective commitment.It is much easier to work with an easel than with metal sheets, with a brush rather than an etching needle, with oils and watercolours rather than nitric
acid or iron perchloride (but it should also be noted that, in parallel with her engravings, Niké Borghese is also a delightful and tormenting painter in oils).
Her Roman etchings. Her (heartfelt) Rome-inspired etchings and aquatints form a peculiar trend in this artist’s vast production and should really be
considered an essential part of the masterly range of cityscapes whose subject is the Eternal City.
An unmistakable, extremely pure style. Perfect perspective. Punctilious optics, at the same time unrelated to any illustrious graphic forerunner, with regard
both to the size and vivacious naturalness of any human portrayal.
Detachment and participation: two souls, the eternal and the ephemeral, living together and completing each other, in these enchanting engravings of which
Rome is the protagonist. The breath of thousands of years of history, plus the fleeting characters of passing time. As Angelo della Torre says, here is an
artist that ranks “among the great interpreters of the Roman spirit”.

Not only Rome. Niké Borghese already has to her credit about thirty one-man-shows on three continents, and her reputation certainly makes her a worthy vestal
artist of the Eternal City. But her fervid activity does not hinge only on Rome and on the art of engraving.

Her identity is also strong and unmistakable in her oil paintings. Her palette is impartially enriched with mythical culture, compositional precision, and
great conceptual originality. The common denominator is an oneiric harmony, with an ear oft tending to the arcane language of Water.Thus we see the Torre della Signoria enigmatically looking at its reflection on the wet cobblestones; or the rapt Narcissus looking at his reflection in the
River Cefiso; or the sweet Arethusa portrayed in the middle of a melodious liquid vortex; or the ancient broken bridge over the stream of the mythical town

of Ninfa. There are not many great figurative artists in Italy, but the versatile and cultured Niké Borghese must certainly be numbered among them.