Pelosi, Marilena

Brazil, 1957

Marilena Pelosi was born in 1957 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She started drawing at the age of sixteen after succumbing to a grave illness. She was the only child whose parents were catholic before converting to a voodoo cult. At the age of 20 she left Brazil to travel to Europe and India and eventually settled in France. Laurent Danchin writes that her work is autobiographic and, at the same time, a symbolic synthesis: memories of voodoo trances, diabolic carnivals, Eucharistic processions blend with most intimate remembrances. Cataleptic characters, mutilated and penetrated bodies, endless conveyors and armies of bees with human heads are her frequent subjects. In her teens, she was fascinated by surrealism and wanted to study Fine Arts. She thinks herself lucky not to have pursued that path, as it allowed for the development of her unique iconography and system of representation, which brought her closer to Art Brut creators. Pelosi feels that her work resembles the creation of spiritists, both for its mysticism and unpredictability: she claims that she never plans a composition in advance – it is her hands that guide her. For her, the pleasure of uncovering a scene from her imagination constitutes the sense of life. Marilena Pelosi is represented by Christian Berst Art Brut and by Henry Boxer Galleries. Her works have been exhibited at Outsider Art Museum in Netherlands and at Salo IV – Salon du dessin érotique in Paris, France.