Marisa Portolese, MFA

Biography

Marisa Portolese is a Canadian-Italian, visual artist born in Montreal, Quebec. She is a full Professor in the Faculty of Fine Arts at Concordia University. Portraiture, representations of women, and figures in nature are recurrent subjects in her artistic practice. Autobiography and familial and cultural heritage are equally prominent themes explored through the genre of storytelling, the narrative still and moving image. She often produces large-scale colour photographs, rich in painterly references that concentrate on elucidating facets of human experiences in relation to psychological and physical environments regarding identity and spectatorship. She attempts to weave together gesture, affect, and the nuances of the gaze, to create an immersive and emotional landscape for the viewer.

Upon graduating with an MFA degree from Concordia University in 2001, she has produced many photographic projects,which have received critical acclaim and featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions widely shown in Canada, Europe and the United States. From 2017 to2019, she was the Artist in Residence at the McCord Museum in Montreal. Her work during this residency culminated as a solo show and a catalogue publication entitled In the Studio with Notman. Alongside her exhibition record, critics have written about her work in various journals, magazines,newspapers, art books and periodicals. She has four published monographs: UnChevreuil à la Fenêtre de ma Chambre (2003), Antonia’s Garden (2012)In the Studio with Notman (2018) and Goose Village (2023). She has been awarded grants from the Canada and Québec Arts Councils and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and in 2022, she received a Concordia University Research Fellow Award. In addition, her works are included in various corporate, museum and private collections.

Areas of expertise

Archival research, autobiography, contemporary art, curation, photography, portraiture, the representation of women, publications, oral history, writing

Research interests

Teaching activities 2025-2026

Portraiture and Social Identity
Friday 1:30 to 5:30 pm
Fall 2025

Photo 610/611-Graduate Studio
Wednesday 1:30-5:30 pm

In the Studio with Notman

McCord Museum
Text by Hélène Samson
Montréal, Québec, 2018

10 x 12 inches, 92 pages
ISBN : 978-1-895615-36-4

Belle de Jour II

Belle de Jour II Boxset

Photography by Marisa Portolese
Montréal, Québec, 2014

4 3/8 x 5 7/8 inches, 38 postcards,

Antonia's Garden

Antonia's Garden/Le Jardin d'Antonia

UMA, La Maison de l'image et de la photographie
Photography by Marisa Portolese
Text by James D. Campbell
Montréal, Québec, 2012

Hardcover Edition
8,75 x 11,5 inches, 80 pages
ISBN : 978-0-9878709-0-2

Limited Edition with Print
Signed and numbered edition of the book accompanied by a choice of one of two 8x10 inch chromogenic print

Un Chevreuil à la fenêtre de ma Chambre

Un Chevreuil à la fenêtre de ma Chambres

Collection Des Photographes, Dazibao Publications
Photography by Marisa Portolese
Text by Marie-Ève Gagnon
Montréal, Québec, 2003

80 pages
ISBN : 978-2-922135-19-0

Goose Village