We are surrounded by images all day and keep moving on to the next one. Antonia does the opposite. She takes a picture that was uploaded to sell something or document a party and stays with it until it becomes a painting.

In her studio I saw how that happens. She doesn’t copy the originals, she translates them through colour, texture and movement. She paints on thick sheets of plastic instead of canvas, which gives the work its own character. The result feels playful and a bit dreamlike, somewhere between a familiar image and a distant memory. Her paintings hold on to things that would otherwise disappear: a birthday, a forgotten object, a little creature. In her recent work she turns to things that got left behind, and you start wondering who they belonged to.

Today we share our first film from South America, a small portrait of our afternoon with Antonia. A big thank you to Amber van Acken, our new editor on this one.

If you like Antonia’s work, we have a handful of art posters in our shop, made together with her.