Architecture of Emotion: A Final Spatial Installation at 55 Gladstone Street
Romulus Folio Gallery is proud to present Architecture of Emotion, a major solo exhibition and immersive spatial installation by Angelina Mirabito, PhD, presented from 6–28 May 2026 at 55 Gladstone Street, South Melbourne.
Marking the final exhibition presented by Romulus Folio Gallery within the Gladstone residency space, Architecture of Emotion brings together painting, sculpture, spatial intervention, design, and immersive installation into a unified emotional and architectural environment.
Over the past fourteen months, Romulus Folio Gallery has developed an independent artist-led program of exhibitions, workshops, salons, and spatial experimentation within the Gladstone artist residency site. Throughout this period, the gallery has explored how contemporary art can operate as part of everyday architectural experience, transforming the former retail environment into an active cultural and emotional space.
Architecture of Emotion concludes this chapter through a body of work that investigates how emotional experience becomes structured through material, movement, memory, perception, and relation.
Structured through the first aett of the Elder Futhark, the exhibition moves through a sequence of foundational emotional conditions beginning with Fehu and concluding with Wunjo. Across the exhibition, the works engage activation, formation, boundary, communication, rhythm, illumination, exchange, and alignment as forces that continue to shape contemporary human experience.
Layered surfaces built through sustained processes of accumulation, interruption, gesture, and reworking create paintings that operate simultaneously as emotional fields and spatial systems. Warm whites, pale mineral blues, dusty rose, mauves, silvers, creams, earthy browns, and golds shift across the works in changing states of density and atmosphere. Raised textures, directional movements, crossings, pathways, and sweeping gestures establish visual rhythms that guide viewers physically and emotionally through the space.
The exhibition extends beyond painting through a series of immersive spatial interventions. Activated columns wrapped in luminous textured surfaces transform the architecture of the gallery into part of the work itself, while suspended spheres and half spheres emerging from surfaces create recurring forms distributed throughout the environment. These repeated circular elements engage emotional resonance, interconnected perception, memory, rhythm, and expanded spatial awareness.
Drawing from Yayoi Kusama’s immersive spatial language and her use of recurring circular forms, the spheres create points of emotional orientation throughout the exhibition, extending the visual rhythm of the paintings into the surrounding environment.
At the centre of the installation, the large scale impact wall establishes a radiating field of movement that anchors the surrounding spatial experience. Together with the paintings, spheres, activated columns, and sculptural interventions, the exhibition operates as a unified sensory system where art, architecture, and emotional experience converge.
Custom sculptural furniture interventions by acclaimed luxury interior designer, sculpture, furniture maker and artist, Mark Alexander, further deepen the exhibition’s architectural language. His dark timber forms introduce grounding, balance, and spatial weight, creating a dialogue between object, body, and environment.
Additional works including Signature Frequency, Soul Print, and The Fates extend the exhibition’s exploration of identity, vibration, memory, emotional imprint, and continuity across time.
Together, the paintings, spheres, activated columns, impact wall, and furniture interventions create an immersive sensory environment where art, design, architecture, and emotional experience operate as a continuous system.
As the concluding exhibition at 55 Gladstone Street, Architecture of Emotion reflects the ongoing evolution of Romulus Folio Gallery’s commitment to spatial practice, interdisciplinary experimentation, and emotionally engaged contemporary art.
Exhibition Details
Architecture of Emotion
Angelina Mirabito, PhD
Exhibition Dates
6–28 May 2026
Opening Night
Friday 22 May 2026
5pm–7pm
Location
Romulus Folio Gallery
55 Gladstone Street
South Melbourne VIC 3205
Gallery Hours
Wednesday–Friday 12pm–7pm
Saturday–Sunday 12pm–5pm
Curated by Angelina Mirabito in collaboration with Louisa Chu and Scott Ross.
Spatial furniture interventions by Mark Alexander.