Antonella Quacchia

Italian artist born in Gorizia (Italy) on 1957.  As a child Antonella lived in Brazil and subsequently was resident in Italy, France and Switzerland.  About a year ago, she moved to Vienna (Austria), where she now lives.  

Life made her learn several languages besides Italian, which is her mother tongue. She is fluent in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese, and currently learning German. 

Her academic background is in Computer Science. At the beginning of her career, she worked for almost ten years at the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland.  The rest of her professional life was spent in the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Geneva, as director of the Digital Communication Unit.   

Antonella started to approach art a few years ago. Nevertheless, due to work and family responsibility, she was never able to devote herself totally to it, if not in her spare time.  After resigning from the ILO, she can now dedicate her time to her life-long passion: painting! 

She has attended a few art courses and has mostly experimented with several techniques on her own, trying watercolours, pastels, oil colours and acrylics. The latter, in particular, used together with a variety of materials uncommon in painting, is what gives light to her work.

With time, she painted many figurative subjects, such as flowers or landscapes, and then realized that her best expression is through abstract painting, as it leaves so much space for sharing emotions, imagination, curiosity and interpretation. 

Both for professional engagements and for her own interest, she travelled the world extensively, always curious about other ways of living and fascinated by the beauty of our planet.  Memories of those trips still constitute a large source of inspiration. Her woks express what she feels, what she sees around her:  movement, colour, nature, memories, food,… 

Antonella is currently working on a Series called “Floating shapes", where she invites people to use their imagination to experience another way of looking at familiar elements. Her paintings first attract people from far away for the contrasting masses. By getting closer, one can discover a multitude of shapes, colours and details that stimulate curiosity and create a space for free imagination.