Please Touch The Works of art:

A COLLECTION OF TEXTILE PAINTINGS BY MARLO GRETA

I was born in Southern California, raised in Austin by a family of artists, and shaped by seasons in New York and Los Angeles. Each place left its mark, guiding me toward the work I do today. Now rooted in Nashville, I’ve found a thriving creative community that continues to inspire my growth.

My early career in fashion and lifelong love of visual art have always run parallel, but it was my immersion in queer nightlife that truly shaped my understanding of both. From Brooklyn warehouse raves to drag brunches in Austin and themed parties in L.A., style was no longer about fitting in, it was about standing out with intention. In these spaces of DIY, glitter, grit, and radical self-expression, the goal wasn’t perfection but presence. Our uniqueness became the unifying force that brought us together, and through that we became living works of art.

That understanding drives my work today. I paint directly onto garments, each piece a collaboration between artist, fabric, and wearer. These are not static relics for the wall but living canvases, meant to be worn and weathered. As time passes, the piece softens and fades, becoming richer with memory, and that, in essence, is its legacy.

Like identity itself the themes I explore revel in contradiction: safety tangled with danger, sacred iconography laced with kink, beauty married to decay. I am drawn to the taboo truth that none of us (despite our fiercest convictions and sense of self righteousness) exist within neat binaries of purity, gender, holiness or heroism. 

Through painted garments, I explore the liminal space between binaries while inviting the wearer to collapse the distance between viewer and art. The act of dressing becomes a participatory sculpture where the wearer’s movement and presence complete the work, embodying ambiguity and complexity at its core.