Delia Cancela studied at Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes and participated in Instituto Torcuato Di Tella (ITDT) in the 1960s. In 1965, together with her partner Pablo Mesejean, she held her first exhibition Love and Life in Galería Lirolay. After living in Paris during 1967 thanks to a French Government scholarship, Delia and Pablo took part in Experiencias 68 and held the Ropa con Riesgo fashion show at ITDT. At the end of the decade they left Buenos Aires to settle first in New York and finally in London in 1970.
In London their pieces got immediate recognition and were published in Vogue, Harper´s Bazaar or Queen magazines. Since 1975, settled in Paris, they presented their collections at events where actresses, models and dancers combined fashion shows with performance. In the following decade, Delia Cancela held individual exhibitions at Centro de Arte y Comunicación (CAyC) and several institutions in Europe and Asia. Living in Buenos Aires since 1999, she presented her retrospective at Centro Cultural Parque de España in Rosario (2000) curated by María José Herrera.
She has participated in numerous exhibitions such as La Consagración de la Primavera (2010) at Fundación Osde and Arte de contradicciones (Art of Contradictions). Pop, realism and politics. Brazil – Argentina 1960 (2012) at Fundación Proa. The Victoria and Albert Museum has pieces by Delia Cancela and Pablo Mesejean in its collection.
Likewise, Delia has been presented several awards, such as the Directorio award for her career, granted by the National Endowment for the Arts (2004), and she was designated an outstanding personality of culture by the City of Buenos Aires Legislature (2013).