Marilena Pelosi's dark, unfettered lines and complex, sometimes highly colourful creations recount a cruel fairy tale full of symbols, in which meaning slips away, challenging understanding – including her own, even though, as she admits, "It's normal people who go mad. But since I've never been normal, I'm quite safe". Born in 1957 in Rio de Janeiro, Marilena initially wanted to study Fine Art, but, as she says, "It's a good thing I didn't, because they'd have taught me to draw properly". She began producing art at the age of sixteen while convalescing after a serious illness, as a way of passing the time. She eventually had to leave Brazil to escape a forced marriage with a voodoo priest. This marked the beginning of a period of rootless drifting, during which she turned to art to help her get over two failed marriages. Her drawings, in biro or felt pen on ordinary or tracing paper, often depicted women, sometimes undergoing torture, spurting tears: bodily fluids – water and blood – are omnipresent. A transgressive form of Marilena's native culture is also palpable in the works, the exuberant Catholicism and feverish Macumba of her homeland forming a mad whirl. Her untrammelled, disturbing art, oozing a sense of sharp suffering, throws the viewer into an illicit, intimate, sublime world. Marilena Pelosi's art is now is held in major collections of Art Brut, while a number of articles and book-length studies have recently been devoted to her work.

• art)&(marges Collection, Bruxelles (Belgique)
• Musée de la Fabuloserie, Dicy (France)
• Madmusée, Liège (Belgique)
• Treger Saint Silvestre Collection (Portugal)
• Musée de la Création Franche, Bègles (France)
• Inye Collection, Iaroslavl (Russie)
• Arte Singular Museum, Altéa (Espagne)
• Dino Menozzi Collection, Reggio Emilia (Italie)

• Arte bruta, terra incognita, catalogue d’exposition, (collection Treger-Saint Silvestre Lisbonne, 20 Avril 2012 au 23 Septembre 2012 à la Fondation Arpad-Szenses – Viera Da Silva), textes de Christian Berst, Marina Bairrao Ruivo, Antonio Saint Silvestre, Paris, lelivredart, 2012.   

• Bruno Montpied, « Le royaume parallèle » in L’or aux 13 îles, n°2, Juin 2011.

• « L'Art Brut aujourd'hui », Artension, Hors Série n°4, septembre 2010.

• Marilena Pelosi, Manœuvres de désenvoutement, catalogue d'exposition (galerie christian berst 13février – 14 mars 2009), textes de Christian Berst et Laurent Danchin, Paris, lelivredart, galerie christian berst, 2009.

• Madmusée Collection 1998-2008, Liège, Madmusée, 2008.

• Catalogue Ai Margini della Sguardo, L'Arte irregulare della Collezione Menozzi, dir. Bianca Tossati, ed. Biblioteca Panizi / Commune di Reggio Emilia, 2007.

• Laurent Danchin, L'Art brut, l'instinct créateur, Paris, Découverte Gallimard, 2006.

• Je cherche des 7 erreurs avec Marilena Pelosi, album de dessin de Marilena Pelosi, édition limitée de 150 exemplaires, Marseille, éd. L'œuf sauvage, 2006.

• Sophie Gaury, « La mythologie de Marinela », in Création Franche n°24, éd. Musée de la création Franche, mars 2005.

• Carnet de 26 dessins de Marilena Pelosi reproduits en fac-similé, édition limité à 200 exemplaires, Marseille, Les Amis de l'œuf sauvage, 2004.

• Kathy Alliou, « Marilena Pelosi et le théâtre de nos cœurs », in Gazogène n°25, Cahors, 2003.

• Bruno Montpied, « Marilena Pelosi », in Visions et créations dissidentes, éd. Musée de la Création Franche, 2002.

• Jean François Maurice, « Théâtres nocturnes et autres cérémonies secrètes de Marilena Pelosi » in Gazogène n°21, Cahors, 2000.