Marisa Tesauro lives and works in Turin, Italy. She is both an Italian and American citizen. Her drawing, sculpture and installation are rife with concerns about the precariousness and negative impact of human systems. Tesauro use materials of the present with a sage nod to the past. Inspired by the ruins of cities, both old and new, the work evokes buildings that once held lives and artifacts of past civilizations, ancient ruins that stand haphazardly as a backdrop amidst our modern, ever-changing world that continuously erases the present.
She has exhibited extensively in group and solo shows internationally including La Specola museum, Florence, Italy, Queens Museum of Art, New York, Eyebeam Gallery, New York, La Escoscesa, Barcelona, Spain, Stand4 Gallery, New York, Martina Simeti, Milan, Italy, Project:ARTspace, New York, Dickinson Roundll, New York, Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York, John. D. Calandra Institute, New York, Radiator Gallery, New York, Bronx Museum of Art, New York, Newton Art Center, Boston, Massachusetts, Patio de la Hospedería de Monasterio de San Benito, Valladolid, Spain, Casaborne Gallery, Antequera, Spain and NARS Foundation, New York City. Tesauro has done many site-specific installations at Hunter’s Point South, New York, Monasterace Superiore, Italy, Old American Can Factory, New York, Bay Ridge Saw, New York and No Longer Empty at the Andrew Freedman Home.

She has published two artist books, Strutture in 2012 with Content Series and Relics in the Construction of Place to document the site-specific work and research at Hunter’s Point South, 2016-17. Marisa has participated and collaborated with archeologists working in the Magna Grecia area of Italy, given lectures relating to her research and work within the archeology field and her work is featured in La Romanizzazione Dell’Italia Ionica, Aspetti e Problemi, featuring Miti Oggi Ruderi Domani, written by Lepore, Lucia and published by the Università Degli Studi di Firenze and the Museo Di Storia Naturale. She is the recipient of a Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant, Foundation for Contemporary Arts and the Yvonne Force Award. She was formerly an artist in the Artist Pension Trust and was an artist in residence at the Queens Museum Studio in the Park, Bronx Museum of Arts, Artists in the Marketplace and received a full-fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center. Tesauro received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2001.