Marissa Weatherhead, Biography

Bold, rhythmic, and unapologetically abundant, Marissa Weatherhead’s work balances delicate, stylized forms with confident outlines to create rich, harmonious paintings that are gentle and striking in equal measure. Combined with her vivid, expressive colour palette and choice of subject—often seafood, flowers, fruits and glasses of wine—her paintings speak of bounty, celebration and the simple pleasures of specific moments in time.

Born in 1962, Marissa studied Fine Art at the Gloucestershire College of Art and Design to gain her BA with first class honours before going on to earn her MA from the prestigious Royal College of Art in London. With nods to the cubist works of Braque and Picasso and an even stronger influence from the arabesque paintings of Matisse, Marissa’s colourful paintings are deeply rooted in the rich heritage of contemporary fine art while embracing an exuberant style all their own.

Primarily a still life painter, Marissa uses familiar objects to investigate space, colour, form and composition. Her practice is characterised by a process of continual transformation, where paintings develop through layering, adjustment, and refinement. Rejecting direct observational representation and instead concentrating on shared knowledge and visual understanding, she gradually simplifies and reconfigures forms—manipulating space, flattening and fragmenting shapes and distilling familiar objects to lines, patterns, and blocks of colour. Her compositions are often worked and reworked over time, with elements shifting across the canvas as she pushes and pulls spatial relationships until a resolution is reached. Mark making and the build-up of paint form layers and textures—the evolution of each painting laid bare.

An artist of international acclaim and recognition, Marissa Weatherhead has firmly established herself amongst her contemporaries. Now based in Somerset, her work has been widely exhibited throughout England and Europe and can be found in both public and private collections, including the Arthur Anderson collection and a specially commissioned painting, ‘The Four Seasons’, at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama at the Barbican, London. Over the years her talent has been consistently recognised with notable awards including the Boise Travel Scholarship and the John Minton Award, as well as five Artist in Residence awards in Spain, Italy and Morocco.

1 available artwork by Marissa Weatherhead