February 2020 / Marisa Williamson

Marisa Williamson

2020 Recipient of the Jacob Lawrence Legacy Residency

The Runaway

February 06 – February 29, 2020
Reception / Thursday, February 06, 6–8pm

“Critical fabulation,” Saidiya Hartman explains, “was central to being able to resurrect forgotten histories; lost lives, the millions of stories that were lost in the middle passage.” The Runaway, is a staging ground for this resurrection. It is a space of escape, consisting of a tent, campfire, and the fugitive’s spare belongings. It is a site for retelling stories of anarchist freedom-loving women of today, yesterday, and the future. Here, their stories, previously lost in time, can be retold in passing transit through the stars.

Marisa Williamson is a project-based artist who works in video, image-making, installation, and performance around themes of history, race, feminism, and technology. She has produced site-specific works at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello (2013), Storm King Art Center (2016), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2016), the University of Virginia (2018), SPACES Cleveland (2019), and by commission from Monument Lab, Philadelphia (2017) and the National Park Service (2019).

Her work has been featured in exhibitions at Artpoetica, SOHO20, and BRIC in Brooklyn; The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York; Vox Populi, Philadelphia; Mana Contemporary Chicago; Human Resources, Los Angeles; Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci in Prato, Italy; and Studio Stefania Miscetti in Rome, Italy.

Williamson has been awarded grants from the Rema Hort Mann Foundation and the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America. She has been a resident artist at Triangle Arts Association, the Shandaken Project, and ACRE. She was a participant in the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture in 2012 and the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program in 2014–2015. Williamson holds a BA from Harvard University and an MFA from CalArts. She is an Assistant Professor of 4-D Foundations at the Hartford Art School, University of Hartford. Marisa Williamson is based in Newark, New Jersey.

This exhibition was produced through a partnership between SOIL and the Jacob Lawrence Gallery as part of the Jacob Lawrence Legacy Residency. The residency is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and 14×48.