'Painting Moments' Celebrates Montreal Artist Nick Palazzo at Fringe

Painting Moments: The Portrait of an Artist as a Young Gay Man makes its world premiere at the 2026 Montreal Fringe Festival, celebrating the extraordinary but largely forgotten life of Montreal painter Nick Palazzo. Before his death from AIDS-related complications in 1991 at just 29, Palazzo produced over 2,000 paintings that blended Cubism, Surrealism, and Impressionism — the vast majority of which have spent decades unseen in a relative's basement. Adapted from the 1998 biographical book by Mary Melfi and brought to the stage in collaboration with Sharon Malone, this moving one-man show stars actor Nick Fontaine under the direction of Anton May. Drawing on Palazzo's own intimate journal entries, the production traces his passionate romance, artistic ambition, and resilience during the height of the AIDS crisis — while projecting hundreds of his actual canvases on stage, creating the posthumous gallery he was never given in life. #MontrealFringe #NickPalazzo #PaintingMoments #QueerHistory #TheatreReview #Lykstage #LykstageVideo #LykstageCreator #LykstageCommunity