I Launched Marea Gallery
The idea of a gallery had been on my mind for a while. I didn’t know if anything would come of it, but I decided to stop waiting for the perfect conditions and just start.
Marea Gallery launched at the beginning of May 2026. I built the website, opened social media profiles and began developing the concept.
Marea Gallery
mareagallery.com – a juried online gallery for visual artists.
Marea means tide in Italian. Not a coincidence. The sea has always been present in my work – as a motif, a feeling, a rhythm. I wanted to build that into the gallery too.
The concept is thematic: each edition has one theme, one focus. Works are selected carefully – not only for quality, but for how well they speak to the theme and to each other. That’s the curatorial difference.
How it works in practice
Once a month, a new open call opens. Artists submit their work, I review and select.
What matters to me – and what sets Marea Gallery apart from most similar projects — is that everyone who submits receives something back, regardless of the outcome. Every submitted work enters the edition’s digital catalogue and a YouTube video presentation. As an artist, I know there’s something personal behind every piece. Every work is in some way our autobiographical signature, and that deserves respect whether it was selected or not.
What selected artists receive?
Selected artists are featured in an online exhibition running for one month and receive:
a gallery page with a photograph, work details and artist statement
a personalised digital certificate
a feature on Marea Gallery Instagram and Facebook
archive for one year.
Winners also receive a prominent placement at the top of the exhibition and a special feature.
Where we are now
Edition 01 — Open Waters is complete. As the inaugural edition, it was free. The theme was about beginnings and freedom. About works that need no explanation.
24 finalists were presented, including 3 winners. You can view the exhibition here.
Edition 02 — Traces opens 1 June 2026.
Every artwork begins with a mark. Every life leaves something behind.
Traces is about what remains. The marks of time, memory, presence. Works that carry something within them — something that cannot quite be described, but is immediately recognised.
Submissions are free. A fee of €25 is charged only if the work is selected and covers the catalogue, certificate, exhibition and promotion. Submission deadline is 18 June.
Accepted mediums: painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, mixed media, collage, digital art (no AI).
More than just an open call
Alongside the thematic editions, Marea Gallery offers two more things that are personally very close to me.
Artist Interview is a conversation about you and your work in Q&A format, published on the website with photographs of your work and a feature on Instagram and Facebook. This isn’t an interview you fill in and forget. I write the introduction myself, edit the answers and make sure the result reads as a real story about you and your work — not a completed form. The price is €35 and it goes through curatorial selection.
Solo Exhibition is something I know many artists dream of — your own page, your own space, up to 15 works in one place. With an introductory text by the curator, Instagram and Facebook promotion, a YouTube video presentation and archive for one year. The price is €90, and for those who want the interview as well, the package is €110.
Both go through selection.
Why did I start this?
Because I know what it feels like to be on the other side.
You look for somewhere to submit your work. You find something, you send it — and then you don’t know what you actually got out of it. Did anyone look at it? Did they see you as a person or as a number in a spreadsheet? Were you just another transaction?
Marea Gallery is what I would have wanted to exist when I was submitting my own work.
If you’re a visual artist and this makes sense to you, come to mareagallery.com, connect with us on Instagram @mareagallery and Facebook @mareagallery.