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, 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
- TRACES OF HOME
  By Salmah Almansoori & Marilina Marchica | Italian Cultural Institute, Abu Dhabi 17 - 29 Nov 2026
  The Italian Cultural Institute in Abu Dhabi, in collaboration with Firetti Contemporary, presents Traces of Home, an exhibition bringing together Italian artist Marilina Marchica and Emirati artist Salmah Almansoori, on view from 17 to 29 November 2026. Curated by Mara Firetti, the exhibition places the landscapes of Sicily and Ghayathi...
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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