SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2026
ZEITGEIST, Dias Gallery, Irkutsk, Russia
2024
Promzona Comforta [Comfort Industrial Zone], OGOÑ Center for Contemporary Art, Irkutsk, Russia
2023
Promzona [Industrial Zone], Angarsk City Museum, Angarsk, Russia
2020
Chernoweek, MORALIST Bar, Irkutsk, Russia


SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024
Kasanie [Touch], OGOÑ Center for Contemporary Art, Irkutsk, Russia
Navsegda [Forever], OGOÑ Center for Contemporary Art, Irkutsk, Russia
2023
Make Art Not War, Discours.io, Moscow, Russia
Knocking from the Depths, ICEBERG / MiCT Gallery, Berlin, Germany
Ne Teryaya Litsa [Without Losing Face], ARTGART Gallery, Kaliningrad, Russia
2022
Vremya Osmysleniya [Time of Reflection], OGOÑ Center for Contemporary Art, Irkutsk, Russia
2021
Vremya Osmysleniya [Time of Reflection], Angarsk City Museum, Angarsk, Russia
2020
Beskonechnost Poiska [The Infinity of Search], Regions of Baikal Project, Irkutsk Regional Art Museum named after V. P. Sukachev, Irkutsk, Russia
2019
Tochka. Liniya. Pyatno. Slovo [Point. Line. Shape. Word.], Irkutsk Regional Local History Museum, Irkutsk, Russia
2018
Bozhe, Spasi Underground [God Save the Underground], UNDERGROUND Bar, Angarsk, Russia


FESTIVALS
2023
Transforming the City, Irkutsk, Russia
2022
Vysota [Altitude], KALININGRART, Kaliningrad, Russia
Imeет Mesto Byt [It Has Its Place], KALININGRART / ARTGART Gallery, Kaliningrad, Russia
2021
360, RAUM SPACE / Artspace Gallery, Kaliningrad, Russia
BAIKAL ART FEST, Dorenberg Art Factory, Irkutsk, Russia


PRESS & MEDIA
2026
“As the Times, So the Spirit”, Oblastnaya Politicheskaya Gazeta, No. 83 (3021), July 29, 2026
“The Spirit of the Times”, Vesti Irkutsk, July 7, 2026
2024
“4 Unique Exhibitions: From Recycling Art to Conceptual Art”, Moskovsky Komsomolets, December 19, 2024
2023
“Nikita Nef’s Paintings Are Not on Canvas”, Angarskie Vedomosti, No. 9 (1754), February 1, 2023
2021
“Filling the Void: The First Baikal Art Festival in Irkutsk”, Verblud v Ogne, November 3, 2021
“Time of Reflection”, 360 Angarsk, July 2, 2021
“Time of Reflection”, Aktis, July 2, 2021
2017
“What Is Contemporary Art?”, Aktis, June 1, 2017


BIO
Nikita Nef (b. 1992, Angarsk, Siberia) is a self-taught contemporary artist whose practice explores the relationship between time, collective memory, industrial heritage, and material culture. Working across painting, sculpture, installation, and object-based art, he combines Siberian minerals, fossilized wood, industrial materials, found objects, and elements of popular and visual culture.

Nef’s practice is rooted in a tension between opposites: the natural and the industrial, the ancient and the contemporary, the sacred and the mass-produced, the personal and the collective. Rather than treating materials as neutral mediums, he approaches them as carriers of history and memory. Geological time, Soviet industrial heritage, popular culture, religion, and everyday objects become fragments of a single contemporary landscape.

Nef grew up around the workshops of Soviet artists and later continued working in his family’s workshop, where Siberian minerals and wood have been used to create art objects and handcrafted works for generations. This material heritage became a foundation for his own practice, which gradually developed from craftsmanship toward conceptual art.

Since 2017, Nef has exhibited extensively in Russia and internationally, participating in exhibitions and art festivals in Moscow, Irkutsk, Kaliningrad, and Berlin. His works are held in private collections in Russia and abroad. He lives and works in Siberia.