Artist Bio
Frequent trips to stay with family in Mexico exposed Marianna to the roots of her Mexican culture. Curiosity to investigate and create was nourished by her family. She studied at the San Francisco Art Institute, receiving a BFA in Painting.
Further awareness of her indigenous heritage and Chicano culture blossomed during art school. Also, during that time, visiting her grandmother’s village in Oaxaca and various archaeological sites in Central Mexico and Chiapas on separate occasions transformed that awareness into the passion and central ideas for her work.
After art school, Marianna taught drawing and painting at two separate private studios. One of those studios belonged to classically trained, Venezuelan artist, Conchita Firgau, which led Marianna to want to explore a blend of Western realism and Pre-Columbian themes and subject matter. The drips, lines, and marks explore ideas of the fraying of time woven into a sense of existing within two different and distinct cultures.
In 2019 Marianna received an Alexa Rose Foundation Grant to travel to the Museo Textil in Oaxaca, Mexico (postponed due to COVID). In 2020 she created Ancestral Steering for the City of Boise Traffic Box Project. In 2021 she was again awarded with an Alexa Rose Foundation Grant to purchase a camera for quality reference photos and documenting her portfolio through photographs and videos.
Marianna teaches art at the high school level and is a Boise resident. She draws and paints in oil, acrylic, and mixed media, incorporating cultural objects, collage, portraits, animals, textiles, and patterns into her visual language.