THE MARBLE SEA: Seven Paintings Between Ocean and Interior
30 September 2026
Written by Xin Ji
ROMULUS Folio Gallery is pleased to share The Marble Sea Series, a new commission comprising seven paintings by Angelina Mirabito, created in collaboration with Australian interior designer and bespoke furniture maker Mark Alexander for a penthouse apartment overlooking the ocean on the Gold Coast.
Angelina Mirabito with her painting The Life of Water.
Mark Alexander at the Fusion exhibition.
The commission began with the architecture of the residence. Its proportions, materials, sightlines and changing natural light informed the scale, palette and placement of the works. The paintings were developed in conversation with Alexander’s interior design, allowing art and architecture to become part of the same spatial experience.
From within the penthouse, the ocean is a constant presence. Its appearance shifts with the weather, sunlight and time of day. The Marble Sea Series brings this surrounding environment into the home through pale mineral whites, muted greys, blush tones and layered surfaces that recall water, marble, salt deposits and eroded stone. The works create the impression that the ocean continues beyond the windows and flows through the interior.
The seven paintings developed together through repeated layering, scraping, drying and reassessment. Raised ridges, fractures and exposed underlayers preserve traces of their making, while light alters the surfaces as viewers move through the residence. Each work holds its own character, yet together they form a connected journey.
The Life of Water introduces the sea as a living and adaptable force.
In A Mineral Memory, movement becomes sediment, suggesting how experience gathers and takes form through pressure and time.
Layers of Light explores the way perception changes as illumination travels across and beneath the painted surface.
At the centre of the series, The Inner Shore presents the home as a symbolic shore: a place of arrival, orientation and belonging.
This sense of restoration continues through the restrained rhythm of Within the Quiet.
In Crystalline Tide, water and mineral matter appear to converge, leaving behind traces of continual change.
The final work, Where The Light Rests, brings the series towards stillness, allowing movement to settle into warmth, clarity and presence.
The mythology of the sea goddess Leucothea offers a subtle conceptual thread throughout the commission. In Homer’s Odyssey, she helps Odysseus move through dangerous waters and reach the shore. She does not calm the sea or offer mastery over it, but provides the knowledge needed to navigate uncertainty.
Leucothea, an Etruscan sculpture from Pyrgi, c. 350 BC (Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, Rome)
To be installed in October in the Gold Coast residence, the seven works will form an interior ocean. Through the collaboration between Mirabito and Alexander, painting extends beyond the canvas and becomes part of the architecture and everyday life of the home. The result is a deeply personal environment in which ocean, material, light and interior space remain in continual dialogue.