BIO
Delfina Piretti is a visual artist and expressive arts psychotherapist with a studio in San Francisco. Piretti’s studio work incorporates painting, photography, installation, live events, and public art. Her art practice relates directly to her work as a somatic psychotherapist and expressive arts therapist. Her artwork is also informed by her shamanic practice, Zen Buddhism and her Italian cultural roots. Delfina was named after her Italian Nonna.
She holds a BA in Liberal Arts with a concentration in Photography from Empire State College, Rochester NY, and an MA in Clinical Psychology and Expressive Arts Therapy from Antioch University West, San Francisco CA. Delfina also studied in Buffalo University’s Visual Studies Workshop.
ARTIST STATEMENT
2019/ Solo Show : Inside Out
This new work explores themes of memory, symbolic and abstract language, freedom, imprisonment, embodiment. The work uses disparate mediums, yet oil painting and mixed media are kindred in the same way our bodies and minds work together. The abstract oil paintings come from the body, a language of mark making that is without much thought, a sensing and groping in the dark or a lead and follow process. The artist leads and then the painting speaks and you follow, a dialogue of sorts. I experience painting coming from sensing and feeling deeply within and giving form, out on to the canvas.
The photographic image transfers and mixed media are realistic images that engage the mind with clear references and legibility, using paint to create another layer of language to convey a feeling or mood.
The image transfers are born from photographs I’ve taken, as well as re-used images of past paintings. I draw on my work in the jails, a personal encounter with the social injustice of mass incarceration, to speak to social and political concerns. In these works, the zafu is a symbol of the need to look deeply at these issues and work towards better solutions. Through repeated symbols and icons, (images of the American flag, mass incarceration, the zafu, lips, the brain) the works imagine freedom and imprisonment, both personal and collective.
CURRICULUM VITA
Fifteen years as a visual artist: painting & interactive installations; committed to ongoing artistic growth and expression, as well as community art education and public art-making.
SHOWS
2019 Solo Show : Inside Out, San Francisco Zen Center
2017 Busvan Gallery, San Francisco, CA. Group Show & Benefit "Message in a Bottle" Surfrider Foundation
2016 Pro Arts Gallery, Oakland CA. Group Show "Songs for Women Living with War"
2016 Luggage Store Gallery, San Francisco, CA. Group Show: "Welcome to the Left Coast"
2015 Mission Artist United Open Studios/Workspace , San Francisco, CA
2014 Artspan Open Studios, Workspace Art Studios and Somart Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2014 Verge Center for the Arts Opening Exhibition, Group Show “Champagne”, Sacramento, CA.
2013 Artspan Open Studios. Workspace , San Francisco, CA.
2013 Solo Exhibition/ New Work , Zen Center, San Francisco , CA.
2012 Juried Community Art Exhibit, Sofia University, Palo Alto, CA.
2012 Art Span Open Studios/ Workspace Art Studios and Somart Gallery, San Francisco, CA.
2012 Mission Artist United Spring Open Studios Juried Group Show/ Workspace Limited , San Francisco, CA.
2010 Art Span Open Studios/ Workspace Limited Art Studios, San Francisco, CA.
2010 Dream Play Art & Performance Event, Sin Eater Cafe & Dream Repository, San Francisco, CA.
2010 Art Span Open Studios Paintings and Installation: Sin Eater Cafe, Workspace Limited, San Francisco, CA.
2009 Art Span Open Studios , Paintings and Installation: Dream Repository,Workspace Limited, San Francisco, CA.
2005 Art Span Open Studios, Paintings, Workspace Limited, San Francisco, CA.
2006 Art Span Open Studios, Paintings, Workspace Limited, San Francisco, CA.
2007 Art Span Open Studios, Paintings, Workspace Limited, San Francisco, CA.
2008 Art Span Open Studios, Paintings/ Group Show at Workspace Gallery and Somart Gallery, San Francisco, CA.
2004Sacred Prostitute Group Show; Springer-Croke Fine Art , San Francisco, CA.
2003 Poetry and Painting /Group Show, New Langton Arts, San Francisco, CA.
2002 Diego Rivera Gallery, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA. Community Education Student Group Show.
2001 Group Show of Paintings. The Musical Offering Café, Berkeley, CA.
2000 Cab Top Art Ads: Creation and installation of four posters on top of taxi cabs in San Francisco, CA. A project of the SF Art Commission, in collaboration with women of The SAGE Project and public artist Johanna Poethig.
1999 Influence/Confluence Group Show of seven painters. San Francisco Antique and Design Mall Gallery, San Francisco, CA.
1998 Solo Show of Mixed Media Paintings, Bean There Café, San Francisco, CA.
1996 Public Art Project with incarcerated women: Installation of six kiosk posters in downtown San Francisco. A project of the SF Art Commission.
CONFERENCES / PRESENTATIONS
Guest lecturer, San Francisco Art Institute, S.F., CA. June 2013. Course title: Fresco Painting; Lecture and experiential: Painting on the Cave Wall: Origins of the Creative Process.
Artist Residency : Palazzo Rinaldi. Guest artist: Open Air Children’s Art Workshop ( Title: Dream the World into Being), Pollino National Park, Noepoli, Italy, August 2009
Guest lecturer, California College of the Arts (CCA), San Francisco, CA, October 2007. Course title: The Complete Fresco. Lecture title: Painting on the Cave Wall: Origins of the Creative Process.
EDUCATION & TRAINING
M.A., Clinical Psychology, Concentration in Creative Art Therapies, Antioch University, San Francisco, CA, 1982
B.A., Liberal Arts/Photography, SUNY Empire State College and The Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, NY, 1977
Anderson Art Ranch Painting Workshop : Abstraction, Surface & Meaning/ Leslie Shows 2019.
California College of Art , San Francisco, CA. : Abstract Painting with Patrick Dintino 2017 - 2018.
Study with professional artist Larry Robinson, Oakdale Painting Studios, San Francisco, CA, 1996-present.
SF Art InstituteGlenn Hirsch; Thekla Hammond
Painting Critique with Eugene Rodriguez 2005-2010
AFFILIATIONS
Art Span, San Francisco, CA.
1890 Bryant Street Studios, San Francisco, CA
Mission Artist United, San Francisco