About

Delia Marianetti is a Chicago-based artist whose work explores how the memories and spaces that bring us the most nostalgia can take on a newfound heaviness as we grow older. Through patterns, color, and surreal imagery, she acknowledges this somberness while preserving the fondness of the original memory.

Her process is rooted in play and experimentation, drawing from the freedom she experienced as a child creating at her nana’s “creative table,” where experimentation mattered more than the outcome. The idea of process over product remains central to her practice. Working across watercolor, acrylic, collage, and found materials, she often begins by journaling before moving into collage and techniques such as decalcomania. This exploratory stage allows her to establish the world she wants to create and understand why she is drawn to it. Finding joy in this process becomes the foundation for each finished work.

Patterns have become central to her practice. In her recent work, she incorporates polka dots and repeated patterns to establish an atmosphere for the viewer while layering paint and memories. These patterns and images evoke contradictory emotions. Bluebells painted on her childhood bedroom wall, now covered up, reflect the sadness and joy of growing up and moving on, while the theatrical aesthetics of circus patterns combine brightness with an unsettling undertone. Through painting, Marianetti approaches storytelling, using patterns as recurring motifs within her visual language to create a cohesive body of work.

For Marianetti, making art is not about reaching a final understanding, but about feeling things profoundly and learning to live with complexity while embodying the spirit of the young girl at her nana’s creative table.