Bio
Marissa Caputo is a contemporary abstract painter and dancer based in the Bay Area. She grew up painting the hills of Sonoma County alongside her artist mother. Knowing that art was of significant importance to her, she attended specialized visual art and dance programs in high school, and then went on to pursue a career in graphic design and packaging design at Parsons and FIT in NYC. Her career in graphic design spanned 13 years, until she began listening to her heart’s deeper calling of art, mid-2026.
As she started to pivot to creating more art, an aliveness began to surface, within herself and within her paintings. This process was heavily influenced by her recent completion of Tamalpa Level 1 expressive arts program, which acted as a dramatic opening and reclamation of the body and voice of truth-telling expression.
Marissa has led somatic embodied painting workshops in the past at artist retreats, and will be offering more local day-sessions in late 2026. This has been a powerful experience for those who have attended, allowing participants to drop into the body deeply, in this unique ceremony and guided journey of self exploration, expression, and play.
Exhibits & Shows
September 2026
Solo Exhibition “the Unfolding“
Jack London Square Realty, Oakland, CA
2019
Lottie Rose Art Collective
5 Year Anniversary Group Show
2003
Oxbow Final Showcase
2005
ArtQuest Showcase
EDUCATION
2013
Fashion Institute of Technology, BFA
2008
Parsons the New School for Design,
Undergrad Foundation Studies
2003
The Oxbow School
Semester Intensive Art Program
Artist Statement
Marissa’s paintings are a conversation and an intuitive dance between somatic sensation, felt emotion, and untold truths that yearn to be expressed and witnessed. Gesture and form become energetic signatures — abstract marks of memory, present body attunement, and a mystical collision of time and dreamscape. The joy is in the discovery.
Her work is maximalist and bold because what it holds is vast. Each layer of acrylic and mixed media becomes a place of self-inquiry, exploring the tension between clarity and uncertainty, what lies beneath the surface. It's the many deaths and rebirths in a lifetime, honoring the wisdom in both and finding delight and aliveness in them. Oscillating between playful optimism and rebellious, unapologetic expression. Each piece becomes a record of lived, felt experience.
After years of living quietly in a repressed body, Marissa’s work gives space to the voices that want to be heard, loud or soft. She’s heavily influenced by graphic design and urban street art — the people's art, raw and communal, giving voice to culture and connection. It makes the invisible visible, exposed, alive, beautifully vulnerable. At the heart of it, this is a practice of connection: her truth meeting yours, reconnecting us as whole.
For information about available artworks, commissions, workshops, live events, or any other questions you have, drop her a message ~
