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Nothing Left to Want is Nana Wolke’s second solo show at NiCOLETTi, London.

Imagine an evening of hedonism and debauchery at The Savoy: champagne flows, pillows fly, baths are drawn. A trail of shoes and clothes strewn across the floor. In Nothing Left to Want, Nana Wolke shares glimpses of such an evening in a suite of new paintings. Drawing on Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas’s stay at The Savoy between 1893 and 1895 – which sowed the seeds for the Irish poet’s downfall and early demise – the Ljubljana-born and New York-based artist and a group of muses – London-based artists, musicians, friends, socialites – descended on the formerly adjoining rooms 362 and 361 of London’s iconic hotel on the Strand. The prompt? ‘Come in an outfit you’d be happy to be caught dead in’ – as per the artist’s instruction.

Wolke’s creations often begin on film-like sets. Taking on the role of a filmmaker and photographer staging and documenting the action on set, the artist also directly engages with the actors and performers, becoming herself an active participant. Nothing Left to Want marks a shift in her filmic-painterly practice: for the first time, there’s no storyboard, no narration. Just a sequence of actions and prompts that guide Wolke and her party throughout the evening. Props like the party’s costumes, a vase with white carnations (an offering to Oscar Wilde) and a fruit bowl with sweet, fleshy cherries and other delicacies presented on a silver table tray with white tablecloths lead them through the formerly adjoining hotel rooms.

At NiCOLETTi, the exhibition unfolds across four paintings in an episodic hang in the main gallery space: close-ups of a sequence of fleeting moments that surface, then vanish. Think of the tension between two feet that almost touch each other, the muscular contraction of an arm, or the angelic glow on a face. Wolke’s croppings hint at activity outside of the painting; yet she doesn’t deny the specificity, individuality or texture of her muses, only our access to them.

To achieve the photographic grain-like surface of her paintings, Wolke primes her canvases with construction sand and gesso, a composite that evokes the similarly granular surface of low-quality photographs taken with a high ISO, before applying thin coats of oil paint. Her vibrant palette of oranges, magentas, yellows and phthalo greens is reminiscent of the saturated lighting on film sets.

From two air vents, upbeat rock’n’roll songs by Sander Priston (translated into a sound installation by Gašper Torkar) fill the gallery. Priston is a close collaborator and muse of Wolke; this is the first time their practices intertwine. At NiCOLETTi, his soothing saxophone score communes with the sensual oranges, yellows and pinks in Wolke’s paintings. From a distance, we can make out the distinct soundscape of a hotel: like the creaky sounds of opening and closing doors, or the distant chatter coming from the hallway, and other ambient sounds. Background music that lets our minds wander.

Nothing Left to Want is a meditation on the relationship between a muse and an artist. Wolke departs from Wilde’s complicated friendship with Douglas, which she considers an entry point, but not a blueprint for such artistic appreciation and inspiration. For her, the secret ingredient is time: from spending quality time with loved ones on set to the filmic engagement with their ephemeral aspect, or the total immersion in the studio spent immortalising her subjects in paint, which becomes a vehicle to contemplate and prolong a moment. The result is as disorienting as it is mesmerising: a multi-sensorial scenography of appreciation, mutual respect, and inspiration, desire and passion, somewhere in- between fact and fiction.

— Maximiliane Leuschner

Nana Wolke was born in Ljubljana, Slovenia in 1994 and lives and works in New York, USA. She holds an MFA from Goldsmiths, University of London and received BFA with honors from the Academy of Visual Arts in Ljubljana. She completed her last year of parallel study at Academy for Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana through a study exchange at Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig (class of Prof. Michael Riedel).

Wolke’s solo exhibitions include Independent, New York, with NıCOLETTı and Management, New York (2025); Liste Art Fair, with NiCOLETTi, Basel, CH (2024); Breed, Management, New York, US (2024); Wanda’s, NıCOLETTı, London, UK (2022–23); High Seat, Castor Gallery, London, UK (2022); 4:28 – 5:28 am, VIN VIN, Vienna, AU (2021); Some Girls Wander by Mistake, Fondazione Coppola, Vicenza, IT (2021); and The Naughty Corner, Stekleni Atrij Gallery, Ljubljana, Sl (2019).

Her work has been included in group exhibitions at Suprainfinit, Bucharest, RO (2025); Commune, Vienna, AU (2025); Eyes Never Sleep, New York, US (2025); Cankarjev Dom, Ljubljana, Slovenia, SL (2024); U3 Triennial of Contemporary Art, Museum of Modern Art, Ljubljana, Slovenia, Sl (2024); Brigitte Mulholland, Paris, FR (2024); NıCOLETTı, London, UK (2024); Wilhelm Hallen, Berlin, DE (2023); Tube Gallery, Palma de Mallorca, ES (2023); Green Art Familly Foundation, Dallas, TX (2022); Marlborough Gallery, London, UK (2022); VIN VIN, Vienna, AU (2021); Bangkok Biennial, London, UK (2021); Kiribati National Museum and Cultural Centre, Tarawa, KI (2019); G2 Kunsthalle, Leipzig, DE (2018); and Biennial of Graphic Arts, Ljubljana, SI (2016).

Selected collections include M Woods, Beijing, China; SCoP – Shanghai Center of Photography, Shanghai, China; Fondazione Coppola, Vinceza, Italy.