Marisa Adesman’s compositions are an exquisite performance of dramatic tension: stillness under pressure, the moment before escape, the suspenseful beat before a trick is resolved. She mingles ethereal and phantasmagoric imagery of the surrealist period with Dutch still life and vanitas paintings from 16th and 17th century Europe. Likewise, she retains all the attendant technical mastery which defined those artistic styles.
Smooth and luminous, built through hundreds of layers of glazing, Adesman achieves a silky surface. Her obsessive technique captures hyperreal droplets of blood, stained glass, delicate petals, ripe fruit, and soft flesh with meticulous focus. Adesman’s paintings transform domestic spaces into a stage for private disobedience, erotic tension, and emotional precision
Marisa Adesman (b. 1991, Roslyn, NY) received her MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI and her BFA from Washington University, St. Louis, MO. In 2023, the KMAC Contemporary Art Museum, Louisville, KY debuted her first museum exhibition. Adesman has exhibited widely, including at the Contemporary Art Museum (CAM), St. Louis, MO; Black Mountain College Museum, Asheville, NC; Mead Art Museum, Amherst College; Amherst, MA; and Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles / New York. Her work is in public collections including Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, San Diego, CA; and Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna (MAMbo), Bologna, Italy. Adesman lives and works in Chicago, IL.
Artist Inbox: Anna Weyant and Marisa Adesman on Femininity, Fantasy, and Control
Marisa Adesman’s paintings are both crystal clear and inscrutable—rendered in dazzlingly fine detail, but filled with cryptic imagery. In her sensuous, surreal canvases, the Chicago-based artist turns domestic space into a stage for psychosexual tension. – Olivia Horn
Marisa Adesman | Contemporary Painters Channelling the Dutch Golden Age
"By elevating the domestic, these paintings bring significance to spaces and objects typically relegated to the background, along with the women caring for them" —Marisa Adesman
Marisa Adesman & Karyn Lyons Explored ‘Demure’ Long Before TikTok Trend Did
A similar ambiguity colored the domestic tableaux of Marisa Adesman’s last show at Anat Ebgi. In these paintings, the rooms of the home become a stage for nightmarish theater, full of gendered innuendos and Freudian haunts. Dining room forks are bent in erotic poses or twisted into violent instruments. Kitchen candles light themselves. A woman is made of flesh one instant, turned into a translucent vessel the next. “Who is she?” the 29-year-old artist asks of this recurring figure, still unsure of the answer herself. “Is she in service of the household or is she working against it?” —Taylor Dafoe
Uncanny Phenomena Derail Domestic Bliss in Marisa Adesman’s Luminous Paintings
“I aim to create tension between contrasting sensations: sensual yet horrifying, nourishing yet violent, familiar yet surreal, alluring yet deceptive,” the artist adds. “These dichotomies serve as a metaphor for the paradoxes of human life and especially the feminine experience.” Enchanted by a mysterious force, the paintings call attention to the immense labor of maintaining domestic life that, to those who have traditionally benefitted from it, may have seemed like magic all along. —Grace Ebert
Staff Pick | ‘The Birth Of Flowers’ By Marisa Adesman
At first glance, St. Louis artist Marisa Adesman’s paintings look like realistic domestic scenes. But things quickly go awry. Even the title of the exhibition is deceiving — it refers to a magic trick. Her combination of trompe l’oeil and surrealism stems from her love of the macabre. —Jo Anne Triplet
The artist’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles, Adesman conjures up a magnificent display of technical ability reminiscent of 20th century surrealist painters. —Ricky Amadour
The jaw-dropping presentation feels like a celebration of the artist's extravagant, spirited, and relentless imagination as well as exceptional ambition, diligence, and technical mastery. — Sasha Bogojev
Marisa Adesman| No, That’s Not a Fork In The Path; It’s an Owl
Paralleled with the nuanced complexities of the dinner table and kitchen, Adesman’s work has a pronged feminist approach, which empowers objects that have long been perceived as oppressive. —Constanza Falco Raez
"I explore how visual disorientation of the domestic space can work to unmoor and destabilize ingrained assumptions that have been historically limiting or socially constraining for women."—Marisa Adesman
![This image depicts an artwork by Marisa Adesman titled "In Vain." This artwork was created in 2025 and measures 14" x 22" [HxW] (35.56 x 55.88 cm). Its medium is Oil on canvas.](https://anatebgi.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Marisa-Adesman_MA1067_1758755431.jpg)
![This image depicts an artwork by Marisa Adesman titled "Deadheading." This artwork was created in 2025 and measures 90" x 62" [HxW] (228.6 x 157.48 cm). Its medium is Oil on canvas.](https://anatebgi.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Marisa-Adesman_MA1069_1752779740.jpg)
![This image depicts an artwork by Marisa Adesman titled "Tug of War." This artwork was created in 2025 and measures 26" x 36" [HxW] (66.04 x 91.44 cm). Its medium is Oil on canvas.](https://anatebgi.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Marisa-Adesman_MA1068_1752779744.jpg)
![This image depicts an artwork by Marisa Adesman titled "The Turn." This artwork was created in 2025 and measures 18" x 18" [HxW] (45.72 x 45.72 cm). Its medium is Oil on canvas.](https://anatebgi.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Marisa-Adesman_MA1066_1752779748.jpg)
![This image depicts an artwork by Marisa Adesman titled "June Drop." This artwork was created in 2024 and measures 52" x 62" [HxW] (132.08 x 157.48 cm). Its medium is Oil on canvas.](https://anatebgi.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Marisa-Adesman_MA1061_1752779753.jpg)
![This image depicts an artwork by Marisa Adesman titled "Predicament Escape." This artwork was created in 2024 and measures 14" x 20" [HxW] (35.56 x 50.8 cm). Its medium is Oil on canvas.](https://anatebgi.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Marisa-Adesman_MA1060_1731614400.jpg)
![This image depicts an artwork by Marisa Adesman titled "By a Thread." This artwork was created in 2023 and measures 24" x 22" [HxW] (60.96 x 55.88 cm). Its medium is Oil on canvas.](https://anatebgi.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/untitled-2000x2274.jpg)
![This image depicts an artwork by Marisa Adesman titled "Out From Under." This artwork was created in 2023 and measures 62" x 42" [HxW] (157.48 x 106.68 cm). Its medium is Oil on canvas.](https://anatebgi.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Marisa-Adesman_MA1045_1696447336.jpg)
![This image depicts an artwork by Marisa Adesman titled "Red Sky Morning." This artwork was created in 2023 and measures 90" x 60" [HxW] (228.6 x 152.4 cm). Its medium is Oil on canvas.](https://anatebgi.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Marisa-Adesman_MA1053_1696447654.jpg)
![This image depicts an artwork by Marisa Adesman titled "The Conduit." This artwork was created in 2023 and measures 40" x 84" [HxW] (101.6 x 213.36 cm). Its medium is Oil on canvas.](https://anatebgi.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Marisa-Adesman_MA1056_1696447347.jpg)
![This image depicts an artwork by Marisa Adesman titled "Balancing Act." This artwork was created in 2022 and measures 56" x 56" [HxW] (142.24 x 142.24 cm). Its medium is Oil on canvas.](https://anatebgi.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Marisa-Adesman_MA1039_1653608939.jpg)
![This image depicts an artwork by Marisa Adesman titled "Shadow of a Doubt." This artwork was created in 2022 and measures 28" x 32" [HxW] (71.12 x 81.28 cm). Its medium is Oil on canvas.](https://anatebgi.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Marisa-Adesman_MA1041_1683063170.jpg)
![This image depicts an artwork by Marisa Adesman titled "Glass Half." This artwork was created in 2022 and measures 56" x 56" [HxW] (142.24 x 142.24 cm). Its medium is Oil on canvas.](https://anatebgi.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Marisa-Adesman_MA1040_1653608936.jpg)
![This image depicts an artwork by Marisa Adesman titled "Pathos In Pothos." This artwork was created in 2022 and measures 18" x 24" [HxW] (45.72 x 60.96 cm). Its medium is Oil on canvas.](https://anatebgi.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Marisa-Adesman_MA1042_1653608934.jpg)
![This image depicts an artwork by Marisa Adesman titled "Study for Balancing Act." This artwork was created in 2022 and measures 15 ¹⁄₄" x 15 ¹⁄₄" [HxW] (38.74 x 38.74 cm); 6" x 6" [HxW] (15.24 x 15.24 cm). Its medium is Oil on paper, framed.](https://anatebgi.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Marisa-Adesman_MA1037_1653608942.jpg)
![This image depicts an artwork by Marisa Adesman titled "All’s Fair…." This artwork was created in 2021 and measures 18" x 25 ¹⁄₄" [HxW] (45.72 x 64.14 cm). Its medium is Oil on canvas.](https://anatebgi.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Marisa-Adesman_MA1015_1732315379.jpg)
![This image depicts an artwork by Marisa Adesman titled "Untitled." This artwork was created in 2021 and measures 17 ¹⁄₂" x 15 ³⁄₄" [HxW] (44.45 x 40.01 cm); 8 ¹⁄₄" x 6 ³⁄₄" [HxW] (20.96 x 17.15 cm). Its medium is Oil on paper, framed.](https://anatebgi.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Marisa-Adesman_MA1033_1653608947.jpg)
![This image depicts an artwork by Marisa Adesman titled "Study for Chasing Tail." This artwork was created in 2021 and measures 19 ¹⁄₄" x 16" [HxW] (48.9 x 40.64 cm); 10" x 6 ³⁄₄" [HxW] (25.4 x 17.15 cm). Its medium is Oil on paper, framed.](https://anatebgi.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Marisa-Adesman_MA1034_1653608945.jpg)
