Artist statement
I make sculptures, installations, and works on paper that draw inspiration from packing materials, architectural debris and derelict spaces.
My process begins with photographing these overlooked and transitory structures. Using this source material as a departure point, I reimagine these images as sculptural forms that appear to be caught in transition: always shifting, becoming, crumbling. They echo the state of the urban spaces we live in—at once growing and decaying.
My studies in archaeology, 18th-century architectural fantasies—particularly those by Giovanni Paolo Pannini and theatrical set design influence my process. I am interested in how structures are built and how they fall apart, both physically and metaphorically. In my sculptures and installations, I combine carefully made elements with found or everyday materials. I often place fragile pieces in unstable arrangements—as if they’re holding themselves together just long enough to be seen. They reflect the precarious environments we inhabit, stirring a tension beneath the surface-something unseen but deeply felt.
In my works on paper, I build imagined scenes around mundane objects: a piece of styrofoam deteriorating on the sidewalk, scaffolding covers, a scrap of bubble wrap. These are small moments, but I treat them like protagonists—witnesses to the world around them.
I’m constantly responding to what’s around me. Man-made landscapes hold stories sedimented over time-persistent and waiting to be uncovered. My work brings these stories to the surface, ensuring that what we’ve experienced throughout history is not forgotten, but remains entangled with the present and carried forward into the future.
Biography
Marisa Tesauro (b.1976) works and lives in Turin, Italy. Her work has been exhibited extensively in group and solo shows internationally including La Specola museum, Florence, Italy, Queens Museum of Art, New York, Eyebeam Gallery, New York, La Escoscesa, Barcelona, Spain, Stand4 Gallery, New York, Martina Simeti, Milan, Italy, Project:ARTspace, New York, Dickinson Roundll, New York, Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York, John. D. Calandra Institute, New York, Radiator Gallery, New York, Bronx Museum of Art, New York, Newton Art Center, Boston, Massachusetts, Patio de la Hospedería de Monasterio de San Benito, Valladolid, Spain, Casaborne Gallery, Antequera, Spain and NARS Foundation, New York City.
Her site-specific installations include Hunter’s Point South, New York, Monasterace Superiore, Italy, Old American Can Factory, New York, Bay Ridge Saw, New York and No Longer Empty at the Andrew Freedman Home. Tesauro has published two artist books, Strutture in 2012 with Content Series and Relics in the Construction of Place to document the site-specific work and research at Hunter’s Point South, 2016-17. She participates and collaborates with archeologists working in the Magna Grecia area of Italy and has given lectures relating to her research and work within the archeology field.
She is the recipient of an Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Emergency Grant, Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant, Foundation for Contemporary Arts and the Yvonne Force Award. She was formerly an artist in the Artist Pension Trust and was an artist in residence at the Queens Museum Studio in the Park, Bronx Museum of Arts: Artists in the Marketplace and received a full-fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center. Tesauro received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2001.