Biography

Marison Ray was born in Aosta, Italy, and pursued her studies in graphics and design at the Duchessa Jolanda Institute in Turin. In 1978, she joined the renowned ItalDesign style center, founded by Giorgetto Giugiaro, as an interior designer – the only woman on the team. Her years in this dynamic creative environment allowed her to cultivate her own artistic vision while growing professionally. In 1995, she chose to follow her artistic calling, embarking on a journey of travel that enriched her with diverse experiences and inspirations. Upon returning to Turin in 2004, she began frequenting the studio of artist and art publisher Ezio Gribaudo, marking a significant turning point in her artistic evolution.

In 2006 Marison Ray debuts her first solo exhibition in Venice, at the Museum of the Schola dell’Arte dei Tiraoro e Battioro; solo and group exhibitions follow, including “The Naked Body” in Turin, showcasing a collaborative painting created alongside Gribaudo. In June 2021 she exhibits in a major solo exhibition at the Fondazione Stelline in Milan, entitled “Respiro del colore” (Breath of colour) curated by Alessandro Vezzosi, in which fifteen large canvases and several preparatory studies are exhibited. In April 2022 at the Hall of the Academy of Drawing Arts in Florence she unveils a monumental (7.6×7 meters) site-specific canvas titled “Vertigo,” inspired by Michelangelo’s Last Judgment. This work marked the debut of a new phase in her artistic journey – more mature and deliberate in both method and intention. It showcased her ability to create large-scale pieces that reinterpret masterpieces of Italian Renaissance art, weaving them into a dialogue with contemporary themes and figures, all while maintaining her distinctive chromatic approach.

Marison Ray’s work follows the path defined by the pictorial and chromatic research of post-impressionism, blending with the abstract expressionism of the post-World War II period. A postmodernist approach that reclaims craftsmanship and emphasizes the artist’s subjectivity, effectively placing her within the transavantgarde movement. Continuously oscillating between figurative and abstract dimensions, her work finds its focal point in colour and materiality.

There is no room for absence, white or negative space in Marison Ray’s work: colour dominates, saturating every inch of her canvases with dynamic brushstrokes. It pulsates with intensity, demanding to be observed closely – there where shapes dissolve into abstraction, and a primal sensory dimension is rediscovered. Her paintings consistently reveal a third dimension, achieved through the generous layering of colour. This textured depth alludes to the many stages and layers of thought and process that culminated in the work’s creation.

Certain colours, such as red – a warm, intense and radiant red – recur consistently throughout her body of work, becoming so distinctive that they serve as an almost secondary signature of the artist.

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EXHIBITIONS LIST

2025 – Exhibition of the sculpture Entity, Spark Art Fair, Wien

2022 – Vertigine – Vertigo, Accademia delle Arti del Disegno di Michelangelo, Firenze (so lo exhibition)

2021 – Respiro del colore – Breath of colour, Fondazione Stelline, Milano (solo exhibition)

2016 – Artistic workshop in collaboration with Libera/Don Ciotti

2013 – Millennium: la rinascita – Millennium: the rebirth, Museo Regionale delle Scienze Naturali, Torino (collective ex hibition)

2010 – Structure di colore, Chiesa dei Battuti Bianchi, Carignano (solo exhibition)

2008 – Il corpo nudo – The naked body, Fondazione Sandro Penna/Galleria Narciso, Torino (solo exhibi tion)

2007 – Collective exhibition, Galleria della Fondazione Ebraica, Milano

2006/2007 – Exhibition of her works at the Banca B.I.M. premises in Milano and Torino (solo exhibition)

2006 – Marison a Venezia – Marison in Venice, Museo della Schola dell’Arte dei Tiraoro e Battioro, Venezia (solo exhibition)