Impermanent Fascination, works by Marisa Rheem

Reception: November 2nd, 2019, 7-9 pm

Donned in discerning patterns, eye-catching colors, and notable designers, people serpentine the coiling streets of cities, challenging the status quo with their dynamic styles. The impermanence and ever-changing nature of these concrete habitats offer unending sources of inspiration for Marisa Rheem. Working in downtown San Francisco, Marisa is constantly flooded with inspiration from the street fashion she observes. She views the limitless combinations of colors, texts, and patterns that people wear as impermanent works of art that are thoughtfully created by the wearer. Each layer that one adorns themselves with provides insight to their character - their personality, taste, aesthetics - that weave electric stories which energize Marisa to paint.

Delicately applying thin layers of vibrant acrylic paint on her canvas, Marisa summons illustrious fragments of the human figure clothed in streetwear. In her unique painting style, Marisa concocts rich and vivid shades by lying coats of colors on top of one another, forgoing any black paint to define the shapes and shadows of her subjects. Although time consuming this may be, Marisa would not prefer to paint any other way. She enjoys the added element of texture and the three-dimensional effect that this process contributes to her canvas.

Marisa was born in 1989 in Washington D.C., USA. She currently lives in the Bay Area and works as an art consultant at a pop art gallery in the Financial District of San Francisco, CA. She received her BFA in Studio Art in 2014 from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, NM. Marisa has received multiple awards for her artwork, and has had her artwork displayed in multiple group shows, as well as in public and private collections. In 2019, Marisa is debuting her series “Impermanent Fascination”, her first solo exhibition which will premiere in Oakland, CA before traveling internationally to Tel Aviv, Israel.