Born and raised in Northern Vermont, Mariella Bisson earned a BFA in Drawing from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY in 1978. Her work has won many awards including three years of support from the Pollock Krasner Foundation (1990 and 2014/15) and a 2012 NYFA (New York Foundation for the Arts) Fellowship in Painting. Most recently, her landscape paintings won a grant from the Joseph Robert Foundation in 2019. She was awarded a grant from the Rauschenberg Foundation in 2020. She has also been awarded grants in the past from the Gottlieb Foundation, Robert Rauschenberg’s CHANGE Foundation, the Artists Fellowship, The Dutka Foundation and the Vogelstein Foundation.
Her most recent solo show was a sold-out success at Momentum Gallery in Asheville, North Carolina Her new solo show of recent paintings is open as of June 30 in Momentum’s spectacular new space at 52 Broadway Street. Contact www.Momentumgallery.com for further information and images.
Mariella draws and paints on site as a means of gathering visual information and cherishing the actual experience of place. Mixed media works on a large scale are made in the studio. Her travels have included more than 25 residencies. Among them are Byrdcliife, The Hambidge Center, The Banff Centre, The Vermont Studio Center, and The Santa Fe Art Institute.
Her paintings can be found in corporate collections including that of the Richemont Corporation, Philip Morris, Pfizer, Perkins & Cooie LLP, Wedge Capital Management, The Bessemer Trust, EKS&H - a financial services provider, Albemarle Corporation, Talisman, People’s Natural Gas, Dun and Bradstreet, Standard & Poors and many others. Her paintings are in several hospital collections including Memorial Sloan Kettering in NYC and New Jersey; The Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN; The North Georgia Health Service Hospital at Braselton GA; Fletcher Allen Hospital in Burlington, Vermont; The Jack Byrne Center for Palliative and Hospice Care at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Hospital in Lebenon, NH; Orange County Regional Medical Center in Middltown, NY, The Levine Cancer Center in Charlotte NC, and the Portland Oregon Fertility Clinic. Her works are in the collections of The Gelsenkirchen City Museum, Germany and in the Zimmerli Museum in New Jersey. Her artist books are in the collections of Museum of Modern Art, NYC • Franklin Furnace, NYC • Cleveland Art Institute • Women Studio Workshop National Archive of Artists Books Made by Women
Mariella works full-time in her studio now, but in the early years, while building up her own artistic practice, she was active as a curator and arts advocate/educator in Brooklyn, NY. She worked for ten years creating and directing the Visual Arts Program in Prospect Park (1983-1993) where she had the great pleasure of offering significant opportunities to artists to create site-specific sculpture within the interior spaces of Memorial Arch. From 1983 to 1993 artists including Fred Wilson, Boaz Vaadia, Alison Saar, Nancy Azara, and Mel Edwards were shown in Memorial Arch. In 1985, Mariella began the exhibitions program in the Boathouse Visitor Center ( now the Audubon Center) in Prospect Park. She was curator for eight years there showing painters, printmakers, and sculptors. Artists including Ed Rath, Whitfield Lovell, Carol Sun, and Harvey Dinnerstien showed their works in the Guastavino-tiled gallery. Outdoor sculpture walks were offered each year and gave artists a chance to make their work for the landmark park. Outdoor sculptures were sited by artists including Tom Bills, Deenps Bazille, Doug Hopkins, Florence Neal and Tim Watkins.
Additionally, Mariella founded an art space in ONE MAIN, a prominent building in DUMBO, Brooklyn. For ten years, 1985-1995, she organized site-specific artworks in the interior corner space of 2500 square feet and adjoining tall display window. Artists who showed there include Harry Gordon, Larry Steele, Jackie Brookner and many others.
Mariella worked as arts administrator/assistant for Bill and Mary Buchen's Sonic Architecture, for Mark DiSuvero's studio SpaceTime Constructs and was the first Coordinator for Education at the Socrates Sculpture Park. Her last “day job” ending in November 2001, was as Art Program Director for the National Council of Jewish Women’s Senior Center on 72nd Street in Manhattan. She has worked full-time in her studio since then.