Marilina Marchica Italian, b. 1984

  • biography
    Marilina Marchica (b. 1984, Agrigento, Italy) is an Italian artist whose multidisciplinary practice explores the relationship between place, memory, architecture,...

    Marilina Marchica (b. 1984, Agrigento, Italy) is an Italian artist whose multidisciplinary practice explores the relationship between place, memory, architecture, and time. Working across painting, drawing, installation, and material experimentation, she examines the traces of human presence within the landscape, transforming fragments of architecture and lived environments into reflections on memory, absence, and belonging.

     

    Marchica studied Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna and continued her education at the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia. Her practice engages with abandoned houses, ruins, walls, demolished structures, and weathered surfaces, which she approaches as repositories of memory. She works with drawing, frottage, collage and décollage, painting, casting, and installation, incorporating materials such as wallpaper, mineral oxides, charcoal, earth, concrete, silicone, and architectural fragments.

     

    The fragment is central to her work. Rather than reconstructing what has disappeared, Marchica focuses on what remains—an imprint, a damaged surface, a line, or a section of wall. A significant body of her research developed through her engagement with Poggioreale, the Sicilian town devastated by the 1968 Belìce earthquake, where abandoned architecture becomes a site of memory shaped by nature, history, and time.

     

    Marchica has exhibited across Italy and internationally, with selected projects including Lo spazio fragile at FAM Gallery, Agrigento (2023), Custodire l'immagine at Fondazione Brodbeck, Catania (2024), L'Io, Noi e i Luoghi at Roma Arte in Nuvola (2024), Memoria e Paesaggio at Studio Pelicula, Pesaro (2025), Archivi Invisibili, Agrigento (2025), and Il Bivio III: Mosaica, Sambuca di Sicilia (2026).

     

    She received the Premio FAM Giovani in 2016 and Jury Mentions in the Graphic Arts section of the Premio COMBAT in 2022 and 2023. Her works are held in public and private collections in Italy and internationally, including the Museo delle Trame Mediterranee – Fondazione Orestiadi and Fabbriche Chiaramontane, Agrigento.

  • WORKS
  • Exhibitions
  • Press

  • CV

    EDUCATION

    Academy of Fine Arts, Bologna, Italy
    Painting

    Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Valencia, Spain
    Further studies in Painting

     

    SOLO EXHIBITIONS

    2023
    Lo spazio fragile | FAM Gallery, Agrigento, Italy
    Curated by Cristina Costanzo

    2021
    Fragile | San Sebastiano Casa Bramante Contemporanea, Palazzolo Acreide, Syracuse, Italy
    Curated by Cristina Costanzo

    2019
    L'Isola di Plurelle | Spazio HUS, Milan, Italy
    Curated by Cristina Costanzo

     

    TWO-PERSON EXHIBITIONS

    2026
    Traces of Home | Italian Cultural Institute, Abu Dhabi, UAE
    With Salmah Almansoori | Curated by Mara Firetti

    2018
    Geografie Sentimentali | 091 Art Project – RizzutoGallery, Palermo, Italy
    With Giorgio Di Stefano | Curated by Cristina Costanzo

     

    SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

    2026
    Il Bivio III: Mosaica | Nomad Art Collective Gallery, Sambuca di Sicilia, Italy

    Agata on the Road – Ritorno a casa | Fondazione OELLE Mediterraneo Antico ETS, Italy

    2025
    Memoria e Paesaggio | Studio Pelicula, Pesaro, Italy
    Curated by Riccardo Tonti Bandini

    Archivi Invisibili | Circolo dei Nobili – Centro Cultura Contemporanea, Agrigento, Italy

    2024
    Custodire l'immagine | Fondazione Brodbeck, Catania, Italy

    L'Io, Noi e i Luoghi | Sacca Gallery, Roma Arte in Nuvola, Rome, Italy

    2021
    Visioni Oblique – Libri d'Artista, Libri Oggetto, Fototesti per il Belice | Italy

    2020
    Mater Nostra – Immagini, Materie, Segni delle Donne d'Arte | Palazzo Ferrari, Parabita, Lecce, Italy

    Storie di Bianco | Quam – Tecnica Mista, Scicli, Italy

    Any Place | Sacca Gallery, Pozzallo, Italy

    2019
    Fresh Legs Berlin 2019 | Inselgalerie, Berlin, Germany

    2017
    Open Studio | Palazzo dei Filippini, Agrigento, Italy
    Curated by Rita Ferlisi

    2016
    Premio FAM Giovani per le Arti Visive | Fabbriche Chiaramontane, Agrigento, Italy

    Fuoriquadro – Incontrarsi a Sud | A Sud Arte Contemporanea, Realmonte, Agrigento, Italy

     

    AWARDS & GRANTS

    2023
    Jury Mention | Premio COMBAT, Graphic Arts

    2022
    Jury Mention | Premio COMBAT, Graphic Arts

    2016
    Premio FAM Giovani per le Arti Visive | Fabbriche Chiaramontane, Agrigento, Italy

     

    RESIDENCIES

    2017
    Artist Residency | Villa Aurea, Valley of the Temples, Agrigento, Italy

     

    MUSEUMS & PUBLIC ART COLLECTIONS

    Museo delle Trame Mediterranee – Fondazione Orestiadi | Gibellina, Italy

    Fabbriche Chiaramontane | Agrigento, Italy

    Private collections in Italy and internationally

     

    SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

    2023
    Cristina Costanzo, Marilina Marchica. Lo spazio fragile | FAM Gallery Edizioni

    Cristina Costanzo, Marilina Marchica e la poetica dei luoghi: frammento, forma e materia | ArtApp, No. 27

    Cristina Costanzo, L'isola contemporanea. Artisti, paesaggi, collezioni dal secondo Ottocento a oggi | Palermo University Press

    2019
    Fresh Legs Berlin 2019 | Exhibition catalogue, Galleri Heike Arndt DK, Berlin

    2017
    Premio FAM per le Arti Visive | Exhibition catalogue, FAM Fabbriche Chiaramontane, Agrigento

    2016
    Segni e Paesaggio | Exhibition catalogue, FAM Gallery, Agrigento
    Texts by Cristina Costanzo, Alfonso Leto and Dario Orpheè

    2015
    The New Collectors Book | Basak Malone, New York