Every artwork begins as an encounter between attention and matter.
Mariya Marinova is an eclectic, multifaceted visual artist and art therapist whose contemporary practice lives at the fertile, shifting intersection of organic life, human psychology, and tactile transformation. Rather than merely observing the natural world, Marinova metabolizes its rhythms, viewing the ecosystem as a living mirror for personal metamorphosis, resilience, and inner healing. Her multidisciplinary work establishes a poetic dialogue between the visible skin of nature and the invisible, complex landscapes of the human soul. Guided by an innate curiosity, her creative language is deliberately fluid and boundless, allowing her to cross disciplinary borders with intuitive ease.
Her academic journey reflects this dual devotion to technical mastery and psychological depth. Marinova initiated her lifelong research into the body, the mark, and the mutation of images at the Albertina Academy of Fine Arts in Turin, where she graduated with full marks and honors in both her Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Painting. Seeking to expand her understanding of the narrative and installation potential of space, she further specialized in Theatre Scenography and Set Design at the Teatro Nuovo Foundation in Turin. Ultimately, she bridged her visual mastery with clinical purpose at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan, earning her Master of Arts in Theory and Practice of Art Therapy with full marks, validating the creative act as a profound, transformative tool for emotional alchemy.
As an artist of diverse material vocabulary, Marinova moves seamlessly across painting, ink drawing, woodcut engraving, and specialized botanical monoprinting, where she captures the direct, raw imprint of nature on handmade paper artist books. Her work expands into the tactile realm of fiber art, where thread and textiles become raw channels of consciousness. Through freehand embroidery, intricate weaving, fabric manipulation, and purposeful de-weaving—a metaphor for the unravelling and reconstruction of memory—she creates evocative, site-specific fiber sculptures. This material versatility earned her national acclaim at the Luciana Matalon Contemporary Art Foundation in Milan as a finalist for the Beniamino Matalon Award, and later, the prestigious second place at the Premio Alfaparf in collaboration with the Brera Academy for her textile masterpiece Intreccerò la mia tristezza (I will weave my sadness), an exploration of embroidery as a catharsis for human sorrow.
Marinova’s eco-aesthetic research is deeply tied to international geographies of thought, particularly the silent landscapes of the North. During the Cambridge Sustainability Residency at Anglia Ruskin University, she deeply explored environmental art and socio-ecological webs. This was followed by a pivotal period in Finland as an artist-in-residence and guest lecturer at the Nordic Art School, the Nelimarkka Museum, and the Drake Art Center. Immersed in the Scandinavian landscape, she translated the frequencies of northern forests into organic prints and solo exhibitions such as Listen To Trees, MetaForest: Forest’s Metaphors for Life, and Land(e)scapes, where she mapped the blurring lines between external terrain and internal psyche. This dialogic approach to space also manifests in her urban art interventions, from the community-driven Beyond the Murals workshop in San Sperate, Sardinia, to the Progetto Passante installation at Milan’s Porta Garibaldi station, which redefined the psychological landscape of daily transit.
Memory is never preserved. It is continuously woven.
Today, Marinova’s practice is inherently relational and pedagogical, viewing teaching and clinical facilitation as direct extensions of her artistic essence. As a Professor of Graphic Disciplines at the Michelangelo Art High School in Como, Italy, she guides young artists to discover their unique visual voices. Simultaneously, through her work as a Community Art Facilitator at Associazione Amelie in Lugano, Switzerland, she designs inclusive creative ateliers for youth. Navigating complex, multicultural, and highly sensitive settings, Marinova co-creates spaces of psychological safety, trauma-informed care, and intergenerational empowerment. Whether manipulating raw fabric on a canvas or guiding a community workshop, she transmutes vulnerability into shared beauty, reminding us that art is not merely an aesthetic object, but an ancient, vital ritual of connection, resilience, and care.