Marissa Stanton

Marissa is a painter born in 1993 in Hartford, Connecticut, currently living and working in New York City. Her work revolves around food and identity – food’s deeply emotional nature and its relationship to her own queerness and adolescent experiences of the indimidating rituals of Catholocism. There is an almost unlimited energetic depth to the idea of cooking and eating and sharing food, which is amplified when those meals are connected to one’s family history; this process of consuming and digesting could be likened to the creative process itself. Through the process of making large vibrant paintings, Marissa probes the depths of her Italian American / Irish Catholic identity and roots, and the anxiety of changing familial relationships as a result of coming out in 2016. There are ritualistic undercurrents to the intimate paintings of people eating and preparing food, as they attempt to provide a space for processing, confronting, exploring, and healing.

Marissa has worked with multiple nonprofits in Connecticut and NYC, including Tejiendo Futuros and Artists for World Peace. Funded by the 2021 NYFA City Artist Corps Grant, she also began working on community initiatives with the Queens Center for Gay Seniors in the historically LGBTQ neighborhood of Jackson Heights, Queens, where she lives. Most recently, she has collaborated on projects with South African painter Phumelele Tshabalala, Khensani Mathebula’s dance company MATHETA, and multi-instrumentalist and Verve recording artist Julius Rodriguez.

Marissa makes her residence in Can Serrat during the month of October 2022