Antonella Quacchia

Born in Gorizia in 1957, an italian city divided by a border wall during the Cold War, Antonella Quacchia grew up between Italy and Brazil after an early transatlantic displacement. This experience of living between cultures became central to her artistic language, which explores transformation, plurality and the possibility of coexistence between contrasting elements.

Her trajectory later moved through CERN and the International Labour Organization in Geneva. At CERN, exposure to quantum physics deeply influenced her understanding of reality and perception, particularly the idea that observation itself alters what is seen. Years spent within an international environment at the ILO further reinforced her interest in multiplicity and shifting perspectives.

Today these experiences converge in a practice that combines painting, installation and material experimentation. Quacchia works with acrylics, epoxy resin, bitumen, iron powder, marble dust and recycled materials, creating surfaces that feel geological, eroded or in constant transformation. Resin occupies a central role within this process. Its unpredictable solidification introduces instability into the image and forces the artist into dialogue with the material itself.

Her work carries echoes of Mark Rothko, Pierre Soulages, Willem de Kooning and Zao Wou-Ki, alongside the Japanese concept of ma, understood as space and pause. Today Quacchia lives and works between Vienna and Barcelona, where her practice continues to explore how movement changes matter, perception and form.