Works of Growth & Recovery

Seso Marentes is a Des Moines Based Artist and a defining voice in the Iowa Chicano movement.
Working out of Mainframe Studios nationally recognized as the largest artist studio space in the nation.
Marentes practice spans large scale installations relief carvings, and traditional printmaking which serves as a profound reclamation of identity. Born Jose, he transitioned to the name “Seso” as a definitive act of self-assertion, honoring a lineage that deeply connects his mother’s journey and his family’s Mexican roots to the Iowa landscape.
His work is a hybrid of cultural protection and advocacy, weaving a 112-year family history into the modern Midwest. Marentes contribution to the arts has been recognized at the highest levels; he is a recipient of the prestigious Governor’s Heritage Art Award and the G. David Hurd Innovator in the Arts Award. These honors reflect his commitment to pushing the boundaries of traditional craft, often utilizing tools like a traditional tortilla press for printmaking, while maintaining a deep soulful connection to his community.
Navigating a youth without privileges often found in the art world, Marentes has built his career on the foundational goal of “being the person he never had.” Through major projects like Bienvenidos A Des Moines which later evolved into Bienvenidos A Iowa, inviting artist from Wisconsin, Missouri, Chicago and of course across the State of Iowa. His later work is an installation, Soil of My Fathers, he continues to dismantle myths of the “unseen” Latino experience, proving that the Mexican-American story is an essential and permanent thread in the fabric of Iowa’s history.