Marissa's work is a celebration of a specific moment in time
Marissa Weatherhead, a talented painter known for both still life and landscape works, begins her creative process with themes of festivity and celebration of specific moments in time. Her current paintings prominently feature seafood, fruit, and flowers that evolve through a series of transformations focused on form, space, and composition. The imagery is often simplified in shape, representing objects through knowledge and visual understanding rather than literal representation.
Artistic Style and Process
Marissa frequently works on paintings in groups, with some pieces evolving faster than others. The slower-developing works reveal themselves through visible layers of paint, showing how objects are repositioned across the canvas as forms and colors change until reaching resolution. Her still life approach is more structured compared to her more figurative and fluid landscape paintings, allowing her to play with visuals by flattening or fragmenting images, manipulating space and form through simple lines or blocks of color.
Career and Recognition
Born in 1962, Marissa studied at the Royal College of Art and Gloucestershire College of Art and Design, where she earned a first-class degree in Fine Art. Her work draws inspiration from the Cubist paintings of Braque and Picasso, though her greatest influence comes from the arabesque style of Matisse. Throughout her career, Marissa has exhibited extensively in Ireland, England, and across Europe. Her accomplishments include receiving the Boise Travel Scholarship and John Minton Award in 1988, completing residencies in locations including Spain, Italy, and Morocco, and creating commissioned works such as "The Four Seasons" for the Guildhall School of Music and Drama at the Barbican in London.