Antonia Constantine

Antonia Constanine (b. 1993, Michigan) makes paintings that explore introspection, anxiety, and connection through a playful bending of space, time, and bodies. Raised by artists in the Midwest, she frequently visited the Detroit Institute of Art’s Diego Rivera murals and the American Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago which continue to influence her figurative narrative style. Often set in claustrophobic residential architecture, her paintings feature characters oscillating between stagnation and upheaval. Constantine employs highly organized compositions ecstatic with saturated color, rhythmic shapes, and vivid light to examine ideas around control and agency while attempting to capture life’s intensity and tenderness. Constantine received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2016 and is a recent graduate of Indiana University with an MFA in Painting. She is a 2024 AXA Art Prize Finalist and a recipient of the Chautauqua Visual Arts Teaching Fellowship as well as a Bloomington Arts Commission Emerging Artist Grant. Her work is featured in Issue No. 159 of New American Paintings and has been shown at the New York Academy of Art’s Wilkinson Gallery in New York City, Jeffrey Breslow Gallery in Chicago, and Racecar Factory in Indianapolis.