Marissa Long

Issue 172

Portals (2017)
Borrowed from Dust (2019)

The works included here share themes of obfuscation, transformation, and loss, and represent an expansion of my practice from photography into sculpture. What at first felt like a wild leap to a totally different medium eventually revealed itself to be a natural deepening of my practice– pulling out many of the same themes I'd been photographing for years to be examined from additional angles. It’s given me a clearer view of my engagement with photography–a better understanding of what I was trying to do with it, and a desire to magnify that in future images.”

Exploring notions of perception and visibility, Marissa Long reworks conventions of the still life genre and portraiture, creating objects and images that feel at once familiar and surreal–still life paintings that seem to be made from exploded chrome, everyday objects that have been cast in red resin and yet appear incomplete, and portraiture that both invites and defies engagement. Her works speak to the history of photography by deliberately disrupting our expectations of the photographic image, challenging the viewer to focus instead on their emotional and psychological responses, and question their ways of looking.

Marissa Long lives and works in Arlington, VA.
marissalong.com | @msmrsa