Born in Zurich, she lived/worked in Austria, Belgium and England. She gain her MA in Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts of Bologna and she was awarded with an MA in Contemporary Art Theory and Criticism at the Essex University (UK).

She is a researcher, curator, gallery manager, fair consultant and she is the director of Academy Now, a start-up dedicated to build bridges between the Academies of Fine Arts and the Art System. Her research interest focuses on contemporary visual culture and new emerging artists. She is currently working on “Becoming an Artist”, a research on the career patterns of art students with different social/cultural background.

Since 1997 she continuously contributed to international exhibition projects. In 2001 she was nominated member of IKT. Tori Petrillo worked with Prof. Peter Weiermair at the Museum Rupertinum and with art patron David Roberts (DRAF-David Roberts Art Foundation, London) as well as artists such as Christian Boltanski, Arnulf Rainer, Miroslaw Balka and Marlene Dumas.

From 2009 till 2013 she built a new international audience for Arte Fiera Bologna of mainly UK collectors and galleries who visited/took part of the fair for the fist time.

She wrote essays on the fine line between public and private art spaces. She wrote on Shirin Neshat video work and she offered a reading of Candice Breitz series “Factum” through Jacques Lacan theory of the “Mirror Stage”.

She gives talks at Universities and Art Institutes in the UK, Belgium and Italy.