The daughter of Italian immigrants to Australia, Antonia Perricone-Mrljak's background has defined her sense of identity and underpins all aspects of her artistic process. For Antonia, memory and mark-making have a symbiotic relationship. Discussing her practice, Antonia states "The abstract marks build ideas and layers of meaning, blurring the boundaries between drawing and painting. I use the recall of memory to build and instil an emotional response.”
These ‘marks’ are informed by the artist's physical movement across the surface. Her expansive paintings created through the considered layering of colour and form. “My works are not static,” Antonia says. "They overlap and blend, creating patterns of thinking and behaving inherited from my own lineage, a lineage which I received and which I have in turn given by virtue of my own life and procreation.”
Historically, mark-making on canvas provided illustrations of unspoken words and narratives, arbitrarily understood by the viewer. In exploring this notion, Antonia encourages the viewer to recall their own personal experiences; recalling memories both old and new. In this way, her work seeks to democratise the art experience, allowing everyone to project their own story onto the canvas.
“As soon as I started making art, I never questioned it.”